Laying Waste to the Status Quo
by M. Sledgehammer
Summary: Rogue stumbles upon an unlikely new ally uncovering a complicated past that ties to Wolverine's memories.  They'll need the X-men's help to survive their hunters and shake up the norm.  There may be graphic violence in later chapters.
1. Chapter 1

Story Notes – X-3 movie based, without the professor's death. Jean & Scott, however, I am leaving dead.

Disclaimer – Of course I don't own any of these characters or the rights to the X-men (or any other fantastic franchise at all for that matter). I'm pretty sure that if I did I'd have cooler hobbies or be blowing my profits at a karaoke bar right now.

Laying Waste to the Status Quo

Chapter 1 – Who the Cat Dragged In

Rogue had escaped the mansion un-noticed earlier for a night of mischief. She had gone to see a concert and was just heading out of the particularly seedy and dark music club she had been frequenting as of late when she heard the sound of an explosion nearby. The mass of foot traffic on the street ran away from the sound's origin, but Rogue ran straight for it.

She sprinted a few blocks and then rounded the corner, coming to an abrupt stop. In front of her Sabertooth was shaking the dust off of his shoulders and throwing rubble to and fro looking for something. He was cussing and growling, which could only mean trouble, so she quickly reached down and turned on her communicator, setting it to a silent alarm that went to Logan.

To her amazement a man scrambled out of the rubble a few feet from Sabertooth, looking heavily injured yet desperate. He tried to sneak away from the hulking man, but Victor's superior senses picked up his movement almost instantly and he bounded over to the dusty figure quickly. Rogue began to approach the scene cautiously. Sabertooth had now grabbed the young man and was beating him repeatedly against the side of the nearest standing building.

In his vicious glee, the ferocious beast failed to notice the approach of Rogue. She calmly reached down, removing one black glove, and gently grabbed on to Sabertooth's face. In his surprise, the giant dropped his victim in a pile on the ground and tried to pull away from her. Like almost everyone else, he found it impossible to break her hold over him, and weakly flailed his arms as he went down onto his back. Thick black veins pulled at his skin as he grew weaker.

"Sorry kitty. Can't let you kill anyone." She said softly to him as she let go. His eyes were closed and he was very much unconscious with a pale bluish pallor. She paused only a moment to straighten her tangled thoughts and memories out. Then, Rogue reached down and used her newly borrowed increase in strength to hoist the slender battered man in the dust up over her shoulder. "He'll only be out a minute - sorry about this. We gotta hurry." She said to her barely awake cargo. The blackbird touched down 100 feet away, and Rogue ran up the ramp into the back without delay.

Logan was sitting in the cockpit, staring at her as she ran onto the jet. She gently dropped her burden on a stretcher in the back of the plane and growled out "Step on it!" to him. Then, she began to gently work on the man she had rescued. "Sorry about the attitude." She said to Logan. "Absorbed Sabertooth."

"What are you doing out again kid?" He asked her.

"Concert. You know Ah can't stand the mansion on a Friday night." Logan looked in the mirror at her sternly. Friday night was typically a big deal for the mansion's younger population. They'd have group movie nights, pool parties, dances, or play games. Rogue was not exactly a fan of the large gatherings, and it seemed that the mansion occupants were not exactly fans of her attending them. It wasn't a spoken issue, but the tension of her presence always managed to make itself known.

"Friday, or Tuesday, or Sunday either, huh kid?" He chuckled. "Don't care if you go out, but you do seem to find trouble. How am I gonna explain this punching bag to the others?"

"Don't worry – Ah will tell them. Ah got a sort of arrangement with Storm and McCoy. We came to an agreement after the last time..." She said. Logan's eyes went wide with surprise for just a second, and then returned to normal. He grunted and mumbled to himself for awhile, wondering what had gotten Rogue the kind of freedom denied to every single other mansion occupant. It seemed that she had a way of making her demands undeniable at times.

Then again, rules never really applied to Rogue, did they? Her name said it all – she didn't really fall inside the norm and you couldn't fit a triangular peg in the round hole. The remainder of the trip was silent, except the muttering of the injured man in the back.

Rogue was taking care of him expertly, having done a good deal of patch up work on herself in order to avoid 'accidents' with her skin. No one was sure exactly why she was so adverse to doctors wearing gloves getting too close to her. The bloody man on the table was fading in and out of conscience, muttering "Not de lab!" and "Not de chat." Over and over as he tossed his head and twitched.

"Ah ain't gonna hurt you sugah. I'm not taking you to a lab or gonna let Sabertooth get yah." She whispered to him softly. Looking down on him, he was actually quite well built and capable looking. She had no doubt that under better conditions he would have given Sabertooth a run for his money. His face was perhaps too lean, as was the rest of him, and he had the look of someone that had no one to go home to and no place to stop and rest. She felt a pang of kinship to him, but quickly smashed the unfamiliar feeling down deep, setting her face neutral.

They returned to the mansion in a matter of minutes and Rogue and Logan had the man wheeled into the med bay before Hank even had a chance to pull his coat on. The blue giant looked rumpled, and had undoubtedly been pulled from sleep to help them.

"Oh my!" He exclaimed. "What might have happened to cause such calamity?"

"Ah heard an explosion while out and when I got to the scene, Ah found this guy getting tenderized by Sabertooth." Rogue answered calmly. "All I got off of the kitty was that this poor guy refused to work for his boss, and he had orders to bring him in. Well, that, and a strong desire to attack everyone and everything then go out and eat raw meat." She laughed.

Logan and Hank both turned to look at her, with disturbed expressions on their faces. "Yeah. That's Sabertooth alright." Logan growled. "You're going to have some really interesting dreams tonight kid."

Rogue turned to Hank, ignoring the observation. "Hank, he kept muttering while on the jet. Ah think he's afraid of hospitals and labs. Maybe we could move him to a guest room or something after you treat him?" She asked, suddenly all syrup and honey.

As usual, her sudden swap in tone and personality blindsided the confused physician. He blinked, almost speechless. "Ah yes my dear, we can most certainly try to place him in another location more hospitable to him if the tests I conduct suggest that he may be moved without potential for harm." The eager blue mutant spit out quickly. He then turned and began whistling while poking and prodding the unconscious man.

An hour and a half later, Rogue found herself talking to Storm quietly in the hallway outside of the guest room. The two women were discussing the incident in town, while carefully skirting around the fact that Rogue had been out again past curfew without informing anyone. Finally, when Storm figured she could get no more information from the young lady she decided to exact the best punishment that she was able. She smiled somewhat evilly before she left, turning to Rogue one last time.

"Oh Rogue, you will be watching him, won't you?" To her surprise, there was no look of annoyance on her victim's face.

"Ah don't see why not… Besides, maybe he'll recognize me from the rescue and not panic. He seemed terribly worried that we were taking him to some lab with Sabertooth."

"Well child, let me know how he fares."

"Sure thing."

Storm walked back to her room to try and get a few hours more of sleep. As she reached her door, she realized that the young lady she had just spoken with hadn't said as much to anyone in a month as she had tonight. Maybe this mysterious attack victim would help to mend the rift between Rogue and the rest of the mansion… Perhaps he could give her an excuse to be more present, it they could get him to stay awhile.

Inside the guest room, the southern belle tucked another blanket around her charge. She then picked up one for herself and curled up in a chair with a thick book. She turned the light down low and settled in to watch over him. It wasn't long before the sassy striped sentry drifted off in her seat, despite her attempts to stay awake and avoid whatever dreams Sabertooth would supply her with.

Remy woke up slowly, his mind kicking in before the rest of him. His last memory was of a pale faced woman with green eyes leaning over him whispering to him. The problem with this memory was that he hadn't met any green eyed goddesses tonight, and the last thing he remembered before that was the cat-man trying to kill him. Odds were pretty good that someone had taken him captive…

Remy kept his eyes closed, feeling the pain of his recent 'activities' wash over him as his body started to wake up. He could sense that his system was bogged down by pain killers and that he had bandages wrapped around several injuries. This fact brightened his outlook. It was unlikely that Mystique or Sabertooth would bother to try and reduce his suffering. In fact, it seemed likely that they were only trying to capture him to force him to do their dirty job or to take him to their boss for torturing. He definitely didn't feel any restraints on his arms or legs, which was also a good sign.

Feeling that the question of whether or not they had him was resolved, he then set to figuring out where he was. The distant sound of wind could be heard in the trees. There were typical creaks and groans from an old building. If he listened hard enough, he could hear a clock ticking in the room with him. Next, the man let his empathy kick in, trying to get an idea of how many people might be in the area.

There were a lot of different emotions floating around in this place… In fact, there seemed to be far more than could be expected at either the Brotherhood's lair or Weapon X's medical facility. Besides that, either group would be smart enough to put a power inhibitor on him, or he'd just explode himself an escape route. So who had him now? He continued to try and find some clue from the emotions around him about his current situation, but suddenly, a wave of feeling hit him from his right side.

This emotional jumble felt like static on his senses. He couldn't pin down a single source or sort out any neat emotions. Utter chaos. What could be creating this? It seemed to come from a highly localized source, but that seemed impossible. He resisted for awhile, until finally giving into curiosity and slitting his eyes open just enough to look around his room.

'Non?' he whispered. He was in somebody's guest room. Well, not just 'some' bodies… If he had to wager he'd guess that the sleeping woman in the chair not far from his bedside had put him in this guest room.

His still hazy mind decided that he must be hallucinating. No one just rescued him and put him up in a nice cozy guest room unexpectedly. Sure, they might catch him and perform horrible medical experiments on him, or even try to beat him, stab him, or otherwise speed up his death. Heck some people would help him only to blackmail him later, but the list of good fortunes that landed him here was something he really would have a hard time believing. There were even soft blankets tucked around him.

Remy decided he needed a better look at this strange, strange situation. He struggled to pull himself upright. The simple act of trying to sit up, however, was not that easy in his current state. As he struggled to move, his pain amplified tenfold, and he couldn't help but groan in agony.

This caused the slumbering figure to suddenly sit up quickly in her chair, eyes frantic, and almost fall to the floor from her awkward position. The woman clutched her heart for a second, letting her eyes sweep the room frantically. Finally, the emerald orbs settled on her silent companion.

"Yoah awake." She said, sounding relieved. She walked toward him slowly and gracefully, and he continued to try and struggle out of bed. She approached him, gently pushing his shoulders back down onto the bed. "Relax, yoah hurting yoahself worse." Her soft voice chided.

He couldn't help but notice the feel of soft smooth fabric on his skin where she touched him. No latex, so she was definitely not of the military lab or a typical nurse. He could barely function with all of the pain killers clouding his system anyway, and for some reason he would wager that this woman didn't harbor any ill intentions toward him. Hell, she'd obviously tangled with Sabertooth and came to his aid, so she had to be alright…

He let himself drift back toward sleep, but not without first noticing that the strange static seemed to be pooling around her.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer – Of course I don't own any of these characters or the rights to the X-men (or any other fantastic franchise at all for that matter). I'm pretty sure that if I did I'd have cooler hobbies or be blowing my profits at a karaoke bar right now.

Chapter 2 –Introductions & Revelations

Rogue waited until the poor fellow drifted back into the kind of deep, thoughtless sleep only massive amounts of pain killers and pure exhaustion could deliver before she left his side. At that point she carefully folded her blanket, dimmed the lights, and headed downstairs as quickly as she was able to. She made her way slowly to the kitchen, where she put together a tray with a few glasses, a pitcher of ice water, some cheese, lunch meats, & crackers in case her charge woke up again and was hungry.

She strolled slowly up to the room, thinking about how injured the poor man was. It looked like Sabertooth had intended to kill him, or at least leave him so incapacitated that he could not function at all. The big question was what did the brute want with him? He was obviously a mutant. The brief moment she'd seen his eyes glow a dim red she had known it. Later she would try and sort through the cat man's memories with the professor and figure out what the motive of the attack was.

If that hadn't given it away she'd have been suspicious anyway because of the odd gloves he wore. Each had two fingers cut out… Why would that be? Maybe his mutation involved his hands. She had kept the tattered things for him just in case he needed them as badly as she did.

Realizing that she'd get no further answers until he was lucid again, she headed off with the tray. It was just about time for sunrise. If she was lucky she could watch it while she waited. She entered the room and opened up a pair of balcony curtains just enough to let the sunrise peak through. The room remained dark enough that she did not worry about it disturbing their patient.

Besides, with the pain killers and injuries taking their toll she wagered it would take a lot to wake him. She watched the sun rise in peace, and then read her book until she drifted off again.

This time, the absorption of Sabertooth set in, and she had vivid dreams of his twisted memories. Oddly enough, she saw Logan in many of them; they were fighting beside each other instead of against one another. During a particularly frightening memory of a battle in a village where her psyche had slaughtered a bunch of children, Rogue found herself falling out of the chair.

When she sorted her limbs out and sat back in her place she looked up and noticed that those beautiful glowing eyes were open and fixed on her. Her embarrassment tripled. No one had seen what her nightmares were like for a long time – a few years in fact.

She'd gotten her own room after an incident involving a roommate trying to shake her awake while she 'enjoyed' another session of Weapon X adamantium application one night. Apparently her thrashing & whimpering where creepy enough to make Kitty forget about her unique powers for just long enough to cause an accident.

She had, of course, immediately broken up with Bobby after that night. Smooch stealing bastard. She didn't blame Kitty as much. She hadn't known he was in a relationship, and Bobby apparently didn't correct that. One thing Rogue knew for sure was that she didn't have the time or energy for an untrustworthy man. And she was glad she hadn't gotten the cure for someone like him.

Geez. Had she gotten that side tracked in her thoughts by a little tumble out of the chair? She smiled awkwardly at the smirking man. "Sorry about that. Just shaking off some bad dreams." She mumbled. "How are you feeling?"

"Like a building fell on me and I somehow didn't die." He muttered. "Who are you and where am I?" She could hear a thick Cajun accent when he spoke, though his voice was low and she could hear the strain it took for him to speak.

"My name is Rogue." She drawled. "You are at the Xavier Institute for the Gifted, in our guest room. I brought you here because I didn't think you'd like the medical lab."

"Are you gifted Cherie?" He smirked as he asked, unable to resist an opportunity to rile up a lady, and then jumped into his real concerns. "How'd I survive Sabertooth's attack? I thought I was a goner." Rogue frowned at this question. She hated that her mutation was already going to be an issue. Maybe if she was lucky he'd understand and not request a new care taker.

"I happened to hear the explosion where you were fighting. I'm trained for those sorts of things so I went to help out and saw Sabertooth attacking someone. He and I have a bad history and I know he's usually up to no good, so I knocked him out, called for a ride, and got you the heck out of there."

"How the hell do you knock that cretin out? I dropped a building on him and he got back up."

"My 'gifts' make sure that when I put you down you stay down awhile." She said, evasively. "What is your name?" She quickly asked as a diversion. Her eyes which had previously locked on his red on black orbs wandered down to her hands and stayed there. She fidgeted with her gloves while she waited for his answer.

"Remy Lebeau at your service, ma Cherie. I go by Gambit to most, if you don't mind." He made note of her obvious discomfort talking about her 'gifts'. What could they be? And did she wear those gloves because he was injured or for fashion? They sure didn't look practical.

If she could keep Sabertooth out of commission long enough to escape with him, she was definitely a good ally to have... He'd let her have her secrets awhile longer. Besides, she was pretty and he enjoyed how innocent she seemed to his flirting. Die that blush could drive a man crazy.

"I understand that pretty well myself." She said, thinking of her own name that was a well kept secret. She stood and reached for the tray that had been so carefully prepared earlier. "I brought you some snacks. I'll get you some soup and such later." She said as she brought the tray over to a table at his bedside. "In a day or two when you are doing better, I'll show you around the place. Hank asked me to keep you in bed for awhile."

Remy smiled wickedly when she said that. "Remy can think of some real easy ways to keep him here." He drawled in a deep, slow voice.

Rogue blushed and muttered "You better watch it Cajun. Thinking like that'll put you in a coma pretty fast and give me a killer headache."

In response, Gambit just laughed, not realizing how true those words were.

That evening when Remy had slipped into sleep again Rogue left to track down the professor to discuss Remy's condition and look through a few of Sabertooth's memories. She was getting worried that Remy would not be completely safe until they figured out who was after him, and he was in and out of sleep so much and too busy trying to get her riled up with innuendo that getting answers from him was difficult.

All Remy seemed to know was that Sabertooth was after him for some Doctor or other. That was pretty vague, and it could be any number of problems. Weapon X? Mad geneticists? A new supervillan? All of these options seemed feasible, especially when you considered that Remy had enough power to destroy and city block sized building and get up to fight some more.

There was also the unspoken option that someone was going to strap him into a suicide machine of some sort and end him… But that only happened to people like her, right?

Rogue arrived at the Professor's door and heard a soft 'come in' in her mind. She reached down and gave the massive carved wood door a tug, opening it and sliding inside. She shut it tightly behind her.

"Please have a seat Rogue. We have much to discuss." Said the professor in his soothing voice.

"Thank you Professor." Rogue drawled quietly.

"Storm and Logan informed me that you brought home a previously undiscovered mutant that was injured yesterday. Please tell me what transpired." At that Rogue launched into the story, explaining how she'd heard the explosion and found Remy under attack.

"He said Sabertooth wanted to take him to some doctor, but why is unknown. I absorbed the fuzz ball, so I was hoping you could take a peak and try and help me sort out some of his plans." Rogue said, looking at the professor with hopeful green eyes.

"Alright then. Please try to relax." Then Xavier rolled his chair closer to Rogue and placed his hands on both sides of her head, scrunching his face in concentration. Entering Rogue's mind was not an easy task. She had a mind essentially crammed full of extra thoughts, emotions, and personalities. Finding one, and separating them out for review was difficult as the extra psyches tended to merge and separate from one another like lava lamp bubbles.

Xavier located the shade of Sabertooth and began filtering through his thoughts. Dealing with that man was always unpleasant, and he felt great sympathy for his charge, having him banging around in her skull was probably very uncomfortable. He managed to pull information from him about his mission quickly.

Then, in her head Rogue piped up. "Professor, I saw some memories of his in my dreams last night. Very old ones of him and Logan in a war. Maybe you could pin down a bit more detail about it and we can give Wolvy a few leads on his past." Xavier was startled by this admission. The two knew each other before Logan lost his memories? How fascinating. He immediately started sifting through some of the beast's memories hoping to find some helpful information for their unfortunate amnesiac friend.

He released his hold in Rogues mind 2 hours later with a good deal of thinking to do and just a few answers to many questions. Professor Xavier excused his charge and wheeled back behind his desk to prepare for the impending briefings.

**Thanks to all that have read, reviewed, and added me to their favorites! It's great to see a positive response and I hope I can deliver even better work in the future. I am keeping these types of notes short and at the end of chapters, as I typically find them annoying.**


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer – Of course I don't own any of these characters or the rights to the X-men (or any other fantastic franchise at all for that matter). I'm pretty sure that if I did I'd have cooler hobbies or be blowing my profits at a karaoke bar right now.

Chapter 3 – Dead Man Walking

Sabertooth was in a state of deep rage. Not only had an entire building exploded on him, but he'd barely woken up in time to escape the Police and saw the X-men carting off with his objective. He had yet to deliver the bad news of Gambit's escape to his boss…

That man you did not want to deliver bad news to. He considered himself fairly ballsy and fearless, but some things your instincts just weren't wrong about. Every one of his animal instincts screamed at him that even he shouldn't tangle with that man.

For now, though, he had his rage to deal with. His talons shredded through wood and fabric, reducing the training room to tatters. He had ripped wall panels down, flinging them aside in warped heaps. His knuckles bled and healed repetitively as he pounded his fists into the punching bags. He panted with the effort, and swore between growls. That dirt bag and his stupid little X-man girlfriend were dead. They didn't know it yet, but he was going to rip out at least one organ of theirs apiece. If his boss let him live.

Then, a shadow fell at his feet and the big man paused. 'Oh Shit', he thought. His employer must already know that something went wrong. Sabertooth swung around slowly, trying to bring himself under control somewhat. He couldn't afford to go berserk now that he was there.

"You have failed, I see." The tall man stated. His voice dripped with disdain and anger. "What happened?"

"I had the guy right where I wanted him. He brought five story building down on me, but I had him in my grasp until that damn Rogue showed up. She snuck up on me, and then the stupid frail latched onto me and knocked me out. I woke up just as she was jumping on the damn X-jet with our target on her back. Barely got away from the stinking cops with their stun guns."

"How did she knock you out? Your healing factor makes that incredibly difficult." The pale man asked, looking suddenly less angry.

"She's got some sort of death-touch power stealing ability. It hurts like hell and knocks you out cold if she touches your skin. Old Mags tried to use her in a machine once to mutate all of the world leaders or some shit."

"And she adapts your powers for a time? Fascinating." The man looked at him closely. "I'll give you another chance, but this time I want them both. Do you understand?" He ordered.

"Yeah boss. I'll get the leach and the hustler both. I owe 'em a little payback anyhow." He snarled, clearly looking forward to another round with them.

"Oh, and Sabertooth? Try and get them to me in reasonable order. I have work that requires them in one piece." Sabertooth slitted his eyes and held in a snarl at the imposing figure's words. He wanted to rip the two apart. The shame of a 120 pound girl making him grovel for forgiveness was too much.

"Yeah I'll try." He managed to grind out, and then he turned and continued to rip the punching bag into pieces and spray sand about the room. Maybe this would be fun. With any luck he'd get to tangle with a few of the X-men on the way to getting his payback.

He'd leave tomorrow. It might take awhile to get those two away from that mossy old fortress the X-men called home.

Remy was making a surprisingly swift recovery. Not as swift as he would like, mind you, but faster than could reasonably be expected at any rate. It might have been the forced bed rest or fantastically consistent meals, of which neither was common to his daily life. He strongly suspected, however, that it had more to do with the fact that he had one very attractive caretaker.

Flirting had a magical restorative, energizing power for him. Remy liked to think that was why he had to do it so often. Then again, he had entirely too much time to think right now.

Rogue was not the most perceptive recipient, which he found a bit perplexing. She acted like no one ever tried to hit on her, which was a ridiculous notion to him. Her lips alone commanded attention, not to mention her eyes, hair, and curves. Yet she somehow missed most of his innuendos. She didn't even bat her eyelashes at him or giggle as he expected a woman to. How was he supposed to win over a lady who clearly had not played these games before?

Her blatant disregard for his charm was actually very tantalizing. He always liked a good challenge and didn't have much else to do right now anyway. They had a television set up and Rogue offered to bring him a laptop, but he'd never cared too much for mindless distractions of the digital variety. He had requested a deck of cards and conned the southern sweetheart into playing as many games with him as she could stand.

Unfortunately, she was busy right now with some task for some guy named Xavier and he was bored and stuck in bed. At least the pain medicine was working, but that was dangerous. He felt like he could go waltzing but knew it would be a bad idea.

Besides Rogue and the blue man named Hank, he didn't see too much of the other residents. Rogue had promised him the grand tour once he was up to getting up from his bed, and he was excited at the prospect of seeing a bunch of mutants. Honestly, outside of one incredibly unpleasant incident in his youth he had not encountered many others like him.

Just as he was musing to himself, the door opened and he looked up excitedly. His eyes gleamed red for a few moments, then he called out "Is that you Stormy?" The tall, regal woman in the door with snowy white hair could only be the grown up version of someone he'd known long ago.

She blinked twice at him, looking confused. "How the heck did Gambit come to be in my own house and I didn't even know about it?" She asked. "Now I am truly regretful that I did not get a chance to come by sooner." She quickly crossed the room, dropped the lunch tray in her hand, and embraced the young man.

Meanwhile, Rogue sat across the desk from Professor Xavier. The Professor had his hands steeped in the universal pyramid shape used before important words were about to be spoken. Next to her Logan lounged in a chair, holding a bottle of soda loosely. He clearly was wishing it would turn into beer, and had little idea why he was in the office.

"I have called you both in to discuss some important information that I uncovered while reviewing Rogue's recent rescue." Logan's face perked up a bit. "It seems that Rogue got some very interesting information from Sabertooth. It may come as a bit of a shock, but Logan, Sabertooth has known you for many years. I believe you may have even grown up near one another. It would explain why he seems to feel so 'competitive' toward you."

Logan narrowed his eyes and it was apparent that his mouth was trying hard not to snarl at the news. "So the fur bag and I were pals once or something?" Rogue looked over at him, feeling her eyes soften. Her mentor was finally going to get some answers, but unfortunately they were not ones she thought he would like.

"You fought in battles together, and it seems that he thinks you betrayed him by quitting your unit." Rogue reached over and touched his arm gently, knowing the next part from her dreams. "You left because he slaughtered a village and you refused to help him."

"So he doesn't like that I wouldn't help him kill women & children?" Logan growled out. "Strangely enough that probably makes perfect sense to him."

"Unfortunately it will take a bit of time to try and work out more on this, but I hope it gives us a starting point to look further." Everyone sat in contemplative silence for a few minutes before the meeting could continue.

"Professor" Rogue drawled "What about Gambit's attack? Were you able to put together any more on it?"

"Very little unfortunately. I have my suspicions that he is wanted for mutant experimentation. From what I have seen and heard from Hank, it is clear that he is able to generate large amounts of energy that any number of different groups might wish to harness." Then, the professor looked closely at them both. "I suspect that this may not be the first time Gambit has been subject to this type of attention. We will need to do our best to keep him safe." Xavier told them. "And Rogue, be careful. It is likely that Sabertooth may have enlightened them on the nature of your powers and his experience with you and Magneto."

With that, the room fell into deep silence.

**Thank you once again to all that have read, reviewed, and added me to their favorites and story updates! It's great to see a positive response and I hope I can deliver more work in the future. **


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer – Of course I don't own any of these characters or the rights to the X-men (or any other fantastic franchise at all for that matter). I'm pretty sure that if I did I'd be eating sushi and hanging out in a cabana somewhere with bottle service.

Chapter 4 – Free At Last

Gambit was incredibly embarrassed. Storm, Hank, and Rogue had strapped him into a wheelchair to get him out of bed and alleviate some of his boredom, which had sounded great at the time. What he had not expected was the sheer number of freaking kids in the place! He was literally a sitting duck for their stares, questions, and general annoyance.

To soften the blow to his ego, Rogue had told an animated version of his rescue at dinner, pointing out how he had blown up a building, survived the fallout, and been fighting back against Sabertooth before she showed up. It made him sound pretty impressive, having a tough girl like Rogue bragging about his skills. Especially when she didn't even know how good he really was.

It had also softened the stream of rapid fire questions down to a trickle and he was able to avoid talking about himself nearly as much. He really didn't want to talk about himself that much with this bunch of looney do-gooders. His past was the sort of thing that these kids would not be able to handle.

He had taken the liberty of using the remainder of dinnertime as an excuse to dig up information on his favorite nurse. He'd actually managed to get a good deal of back history on her from Storm when they chatted the other day. It was quite a story, though short and full of holes. Apparently no one knew her real name let alone whether or not she had any family.

The interesting thing was that no one really seemed to know much about her or her powers, except that a maniac bent on terrorism had figured her out enough to try and abduct then kill her in a plot to make humans into mutants. Apparently that girl had some freaking impressive powers that they were all afraid of giving a test run.

Or they weren't talking.

That made him all the more fascinated. He also noticed that she wore gloves constantly. And long sleeves. She kept her skin covered up, for the most part, except for the V neck shirts she seemed to favor. She had a certain southern belle charm, with her dramatic gloves, scarves, and soft drawl.

He felt decidedly under dressed, suddenly. His head had cleared a bit from the medications he was on, and he realized he was in a hospital uniform and bathrobe at the dinner table. Were he a lesser man, he would have blushed. How was he supposed to charm all these people looking like a nursing home patient? The professor was wearing a suit a few feet away, for Pete's sake.

As if (and probably) reading his mind, the professor turned to him and spoke. "Gambit, tomorrow I will have a few of my X-men escort you to pick up any possessions or supplies you need and take care of any necessary errands. Hank has indicated that you'll be well enough so long as you take it easy and stick to your chair for most of the day."

"Professor, are you sure that's a good idea, what with Sabertooth after him and all?" Rogue, asked, eyes shining in concern.

"Gambit doubts that the kitty will randomly run into us while we're out. Who will take me?"

"Wolverine will certainly go. He is best equipped to handle Sabertooth. I think we'll send Rogue, as she is the only one able to truly incapacitate him for more than a few seconds. Hmm." The professor said, eyes sweeping around the room. "We need someone who's actually comfortable in stores and crowds to temper those two. Kitty, would you mind accompanying them?"

"Like, yeah! I never get to shop for guys." She squealed in delight. He could see her practically bouncing in her chair from her place five feet down the table. Remy's face quickly paled. She seemed way too excited. He'd probably end up wearing skinny jeans and polo shirts with sparkly tennis shoes or something. Maybe Rogue and Logan could save him from her instead of Sabertooth.

Rogue took a look at him, noticing the grimace cross his face and misinterpreted it. "I think Gambit's had enough for one night. I'm just going to take him up to his room if you'll excuse us." Rogue drawled, looking soft and concerned. Surprisingly enough he was tired, and when she helped him into bed he barely had time to slip in some innuendos about her being welcome to join him before he was half asleep.

The next morning Rogue had an early danger room session with Logan and Kitty. They all sat at the briefing table in their skin tight leather get ups while the professor went through everything they knew about their opponent. They also discussed the unknown resources he may have because of his employer and how to keep a subtle watch perimeter.

After that, they got to fight. The simulation was, predictably, protecting a holographic Gambit from an assault in a commercial shopping center. Rogue quickly slipped into battle mode as the professor wheeled into the control booth to start the computers. Logan growled at the two young girls "Be careful kids."

Kitty scoffed. "We're not kids, we're X-men."

"We're X-men. You're a junior for at least 6 more months Shadowcat." Rogue drawled kindly. She was older and more experienced in combat than most of the second generation by a bit, which seemed to go forgotten most of the time. Maybe it was because she hadn't told them her birthday, which made it hard for the kids to keep track of because they never celebrated hers like they did everyone else's.

A holographic image of Remy appeared in front of her and Rogue quickly took up a place at his side as they strolled through the crowded mall that sprouted up around them. Kitty stayed on his left side, and Logan swept around the trio in the crowd, trying to sense any threats.

They walked through the hallway for about three minutes before the first signs of trouble began. Logan growled, and popped his claws as Sabertooth shoved through the crowd. The man was shaggy and huge, just like in real life. His longer than usual incisors glinted as the snarled and he leapt at Wolverine immediately.

Logan lunged to the side, avoiding the swipe, and swung around quickly, bringing an adamantium laced fist down on the man's spine as he skidded past. Sabertooth hit the floor hard, and immediately came back at the man with his own claws.

Kitty and Rogue quickly looked around, expecting additional attackers. Rogue spotted some men in black uniforms fast approaching and grabbed Shadowcat's attention. "Shadowcat, you take Gambit into that staff entrance over there. Phase him while you run!"

"And you?" She called, already on the way.

"I have got these guys." She said. Rogue then reached down, opening a little pouch on her belt, carefully putting one glove inside of it. She then took out a little toy she'd gotten made for her. She dodged her way around the crowd, coming out beside the men in uniform. The crowd was clearing fast, because of Wolverine and Sabertooth. The pair was roaring at each other, cursing, and covered in blood.

She quickly swung the weapon overhead, letting it gain speed, and released it toward them just as they opened fire on her team mates and their charge. The whipping cable and weights slammed into the two soldiers, then wrapped around them at high speed, pinning their arms. The pair toppled over as she kicked the backs of the right one's knees with brutal accuracy, and then she quickly scrambled to secure the lasso-like tool so that they could not escape. She bound them to the nearest metal structural column, and tapped them both so that they wouldn't have the energy to free themselves.

She quickly took their dropped guns and stashed them out of reach, then scanned the room. Kitty had gotten Remy into a safer alcove, and both were unharmed. Letting the phaser take him had been the safest bet. That being verified, she headed toward the battle in the food court. Sabertooth was tackling Wolverine into the Pretzel stand at that very moment. Rogue ran faster as the scalding nacho cheese machine toppled, sending gooey yellow lava onto the two as they punched each other relentlessly.

Blood and nacho cheese sprayed as they kicked, clawed, and punched each other. Logan went flying into and then through a table, breaking it with his great weight, then dodged as Sabertooth lunged at him again. The smaller man smashed a chair over his head with zeal, and got in closer for another attack.

Rogue slowed as she approached, waiting for an opening. Logan saw her, and quickly popped both sets of his claws into Sabertooth's sides in the bloodiest hug she had ever seen. Then, the smaller man slid them out, putting the wildly thrashing and bleeding man into a headlock. Rogue approached from behind Wolverine and out of reach of the cat's strikes, then darted out her hand and placed it on the attacker's forehead, waiting long enough to keep him out for several hours.

Wolverine and Rogue then ran back to Shadowcat and Gambit's position. They incapacitated two more guards and easily got their cargo safely aboard the blackbird. Professor Xavier turned off the simulation with a smile. 

"Well done team." He praised.

"Did you have to make that nacho cheese so damn hot?" Logan growled as they shuffled into the control room for a review of their work.

"Realism pays off in battle Logan." He said, somehow wiping the smile from his face. The stocky man growled again, flicking some of the cheese toward his mentor.

"That was mighty impressive." Remy announced, wheeling out from behind Storm. "I think I can go shopping with you any time." He said, winking at Rogue.

Logan stared at him, then sniffed, then stared again. He had missed dinner last night and not actually seen Gambit after they patched him up. He may or may not have been out roaming around on his motorcycle for the past few days trying to reconcile with the fact that he and Sabertooth used to be pals. "Why do I know you Bub?" He asked, confused.

"Who'd have guessed that you were here, too?" He said thoughtfully. "It's like a parade of people I haven't seen in years in this place. You still don't have your memories back yet?"

Wolverine grunted.

"No then? It's a long story best told over beers, but in short, you made me take you to a Weapon X facility, which you destroyed while I freed the mutant captives. The X-men picked them all up before the place blew, and I came back to fly you home but, you had no memory of me at all. You acted like I was out to kill you and didn't know who you were anymore either. You wouldn't get on the plane, and I have no idea how you made it back to the mainland." Remy's accent thickened as he told Wolverine the very brief version of their time together.

Everyone in the room stared at him. What the hell was going on around here?

"Can we, like, go clean up now?" Kitty squeaked out after the awkward silence stretched beyond five minutes.

"Oh, yes. We'll discuss this interesting development after we take care of today's mission. Wolverine, Gambit, we'll meet after dinner." The Professor said, wheeling away.

Everyone shuffled off in silence, amazed, confused, or otherwise thoughtful about what had just been said.

**Thank you once again to all that have read, reviewed, and added me to their favorites and story updates! I even got a few reviews this time– more than I could ever ask for. **

**I promise more action soon…. The build up takes so darn long.**


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer – Of course I don't own any of these characters or the rights to the X-men (or any other fantastic franchise at all for that matter). If I were so brilliant, I'd certainly do this stuff for my job, not in my spare time!

Chapter 5 – A Wonderful Day in the Neighborhood

Rogue and Kitty had headed off the dormitories, and Logan disappeared into to locker room, leaving Gambit with Storm and Professor Xavier. The trio slowly headed up to the dining room for some breakfast. Gambit had been very impressed with the Danger Room, and had quite a few questions to ask.

"Stormy" He started "does it actually hurt when you get hit in there?"

"Yes Gambit."

"Do the holograms or pressurized light photons or whatever have artificial intelligence?"

"Yes. We program in known factors such as body type, powers, and personality preferences, but the computer has the liberty to select the actions based on responses to us and battle strategies. It is constantly evolving as we train."

"Why didn't you tell Gambit you had such fun games when you asked me to join up awhile back?"

"The Danger Room is not a game."

"Bah. Life is a game!" Remy exclaimed. His grin stretched wide, and his eyes twinkled. "What is it that Shadowcat does, exactly? It felt odd."

"She can turn herself and anyone or thing she touches intangible. It's sort of like what you do, actually, affecting particles. She can walk through walls or remove an object from inside your body without doing any visible external damage. It's quite fascinating." Professor Xavier stated.

"Quite useful…" Remy mused. Storm shot him a glare, to which he smirked and went on "I know Wolverine heals. What does Rogue do? Knock people out like chloroform or something? Everyone she touches, they go down."

"Rogue's mutation is more than that, and, well, it's complicated to say the least. She's the best person to ask." Storm cut in quickly.

"She's the only person who really understands what happens, and even she isn't aware of their full extent. I find them to be elusive in their workings, and finding suitable volunteers to help us study them is quite difficult given the most obvious consequences of her touch."

Remy wheeled beside the pair, again disappointed in the answers he had received. He did like a good challenge, though, and finding out about Rogue was certainly going to keep him entertained for awhile. Remy proceeded to push his curiosity to the back of his mind temporarily and eat an obscene amount of pancakes and bacon to feed his ever speeding metabolism.

The Professor excused himself after breakfast and headed off to muse over the strange chain of events Rogue bringing Gambit to the institute had begun, and to prepare for the evening's meeting. The pair of old friends headed to Gambit's room, where someone had left him a few items to borrow for his trip back out into the world.

"Remy" Storm said once she was sure they were alone "I can see the wheels turning in your head, and I am going to tell you something I should not. I only say this for your safety, as I know what you're like and I've noticed how curious you are about our young Rogue." She leaned down to whisper in his ear, handing him the items from the dresser. "We believe her touch can be deadly under the wrong circumstances, and her mutation is completely uncontrolled."

Gambit blinked up at her, unsurprised. "Do you think I'm going to attack her from my wheelchair or something? Shun her?" He growled. "I remember how it feels to be in that position! Bringing chaos with the touch of my pinky no matter how much I wanted to be able to stop." He hissed.

"Remy, I am merely warning you not to surprise her or try to touch her until you are well. Weak as you are now, even a slight touch could be devastating. She put Wolverine under for a week once."

"You know me too well, petite." Remy chuckled, his mood improving drastically. "Wolvy down for a week, now that must have been something."

"I hope she'll tell you the story some day. I wouldn't ask her about it though, or she'll assume the worst about you." Storm then smiled down at Remy and turned to head off to her attic. Once the door closed behind her she shook her head. "Who would have thought after all this time" she muttered under her breath "that the mighty Gambit would find himself in this position?"

Remy let out a whistle. "That's some fille, aye Remy? Nobody can touch her, at least not yet. No wonder the kiddies look at her the way they do. Wouldn't it be grand to help that woman change her fate?" He mused as he pulled on a clean t-shirt and sweater.

Whoever the clothes came from, they were clearly a teenage boy's. Well, that's why he was going on a "mission", wasn't it? To get something respectable to wear would be fantastic. How was he supposed to charm anyone in hospital garb or scrubby teenager approved t-shirts?

About an hour later Remy found himself strapped into a hideously inconspicuous van. To his dismay, wolverine was driving, Rogue had shotgun, and he was trapped in the second row with his chair and Kitty Pride. Kitty, however, loved the arrangement. A fresh victim for her chatter always had a way of refreshing her.

Remy, however, was a master of evasion and managed to tune her out fully for the ride into town. The quartet went about their errands without problems, though the feeling of being watched was very strong.

Wolverine had detected that Sabertooth was in their area, but never caught site of the hulking man. In fact, for once the big cat was practicing discretion and caution. He'd taken a pretty big blow to the ego and could not afford another mistake or his boss would make him pay dearly.

So, instead of a brutal battle in the middle of a highly public place with his arch nemesis and former friend that everyone expected, he killed every single security guard in the mall control room, leaving them in leaking heap of blood and bones in the corner. He stalked his prey on the monitors, trying to learn anything he could that would allow him to capture both the frail and the man.

Fortunately for the unwitting X-men, Kitty's outlandish shopping behavior was very distracting. She kept running from one area to the next, tossing things at the X-men and their guest, demanding they be compared, tried on, or otherwise dealt with. Remy would struggle against her wheeling him towards things he found visually offensive, then Rogue or Logan would have to intervene. This made for a lot of frantic monitor hopping to try and keep track of who was doing what.

In the end, Sabertooth learned very little in his observations, save for the fact that Gambit refused to wear polo shirts and seemed to need saving from a tiny girl. He did, however, think he saw a potential protective connection between his targets, which could be used to his advantage.

Satisfied that he had gotten some tiny bit of intel out of the whole disaster, he settled for laughing at how irritated and unhappy Wolverine looked the rest of the time they were in the damn mall….

His plan was already clicking into place in the back of his mind, and by the looks of things soon the damn Cajun would be healed just enough to make things interesting…

**Many thanks to all of you that have read, reviewed, and added me to their favorites and story updates! It's pretty good motivation, considering I put this out in my lack of free time... **


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer – Of course I don't own any of these characters or the rights to the X-men (or any other fantastic alternate universe). If I were so awe inspiring, I'd certainly do this stuff for my job, not when I get bored!

Chapter 6 –Light Bulbs and Longing

Rogue was getting pretty annoyed. She'd been more kind, helpful, and understanding lately than anyone thought she was capable of, but it was reaching its limit. Well, more specifically he was reaching her limits. Remy had finally gotten out of his wheelchair and the more mobile and less medicated he became the more trouble he caused.

He'd spent a good portion of the morning distracting her from her cardio training by lounging on a nearby bike and asking her questions while she was too out of breath to respond. Realizing he wouldn't get much in the way of responses, he then started making cracks about admiring her form and other equally obvious innuendos. That left her half flattered and half furious.

After that, he'd almost "accidentally" followed her into the women's locker room, much to his (and only his) amusement. Then, while she was busy taking care of some reports for Xavier; he had mysteriously appeared behind her, whispering in her ear about something or other. She'd swatted him away, too concerned with his proximity to hear a word he said.

That incident had left her in a deep state of dread the rest of the day. Rogue was going to have to suck it up and finally tell Remy all about her deadly powers. Oddly enough, she trusted him with the knowledge. She wasn't afraid he'd drop her friendship as so many others had, but she was afraid that their interactions would be forever changed.

Maybe she was afraid his more flirtatious attentions would find another target. She actually liked being treated like any other young single woman sometimes…. Rogue was loathe to admit that she had actually missed it immensely, having barely known what it was like. Or, it could be that she was dreading the loss of their minor at best contact.

She locked herself away the second half of the day, trying to figure out the best way to break it to someone that you saved them by being a potentially deadly thief that can't control their powers.

Remy was getting bored. He'd already beaten most of the residents at pool in the game room, watched a boring movie, and tried to talk his way into a danger room session. Unfortunately Beast's stern fanged scowl when he tried to weasel his way in there was a pretty convincing deterrent. At least he'd gotten a promise that he would be cleared to play by the end of the week.

That being said, Remy had a tone of energy that needed to be burned out. He was a creature of rapid action and constant movement. The invalid gig had nearly killed him, and the house arrest was getting equally frustrating. The only real entertainment he seemed to find was talking to Rogue or Storm, or trying to stir up Wolverine.

Now that guy was entertaining.

The problem was Wolvy had stormed off on his bike to do some "recon". Remy was very certain that recon entailed smoking cigars, drinking beer, and sniffing stuff for Wolverine. He was sure that is pretty much what Wolverine seemed to do whenever he wasn't growling or cutting stuff up. His offer to assist was, of course, turned down. This 'we don't know who's trying to abduct you' shtick was getting ridiculously annoying, and if he didn't find entertainment soon, he'd be begging to get kidnapped by madmen.

With Stormy busy teaching snot nosed brats how not to get killed and his chere noticeably missing, he was finding the rest of the mansion's occupants to be less than worth the effort it took to hold a conversation with them. You'd think a house full of insane mutants would be more interesting, but after a few days the spontaneous snowballs and fireworks started to get on your nerves more and make you laugh less.

He was finally deciding what he was going to explode to shut the kiddies up when his chere appeared. Remy set the Video Game remote controller down. His lovely Rogue would probably smack him if he blew it up with her so close to him.

She smiled her half smile at him. He could feel tendrils of nervousness floating around her as she came over to him. He watched her out of the corner of his eye as she drifted close by.

"How are you Cajun?" She asked him abruptly.

"Better now, ma chere. Where have you been hiding all day?"

"I've been around. I had a lot of things to take care of."

"You got some time for Remy now?" He asked her, with a friendly smirk. He leaned against the wall as he said this, casually reaching for his deck of cards to fiddle with.

"Sure. Would you like to take a tour of the grounds?" She asked him.

"Alright. I was wondering just how big this place is." Rogue smiled at him, leading the way out the doors from the game room onto one of the patios. She looked deep in thought for a few moments, almost absently heading toward a pleasant looking walking path. "What all have you seen so far?" She asked him.

"Just the pool and basketball court."

"There's a lot to look at, then…" Rogue responded. "Let's go to the boathouse first." Remy happily followed behind the young woman, admiring her natural grace (and swaying hips, of course.) They discussed random landscape features as they made their way far out from the mansion.

"Is this lake the institutes?" He asked, surprised.

"Yes. It's more of a pond, really, but its Xaviers alright. See that little house over there? That was the original home on all this land. We have a dock and some little rowboats too.

"Let's take one out on the water!" Remy exclaimed, getting excited. "It'll be like home. Well, sort of like home…"

"Sure thing swamp rat." Rogue said, climbing down into a small rowboat from the old wooden docks they had wandered onto. Remy easily joined her, untying the vessel with sure hands.

Gambit happily took the oars away from her and started pushing them out toward the center of the small body of water. Rogue looked at him seriously for a few moments. He waited her out, knowing that whatever had prompted this time alone would surface with patience. The evening was calm, and far away from the chaos of the mansion you could hear the frogs and crickets singing in competition. "That sound I missed." He sighed softly. "It's a little different up here, but still sweet."

"Ah come out here when I start to get nostalgic." Rogue said in an equally soft and warm voice. Then, she heaved a small sigh. After another moment's pause she launched in.

"Remy, I'm sure you've heard some rumors around the mansion about me." She said, looking awkwardly down at the water and anywhere but at him. "You scared me earlier, and I guess it's time I tell you exactly what my mutation does."

Remy barely managed to mask his surprise. He was sure he'd have to dance around that for at least another few days before she cracked. "Oui?" He asked.

"Gambit, I… When I touch someone I steel their life force, memories, and if they are a mutant, their powers. It could be deadly if the contact was long enough and I have absolutely no control over it. I've put at least one person into a coma on accident, and knocked others out for days and weeks. You shouldn't get too close to me, for your sake as well as mine. You can't touch me" She blurted out in a stream of words that were almost too fast to follow. She wouldn't look at him as she spoke, and she only glanced up after she finished.

Remy reached out and pulled her tightly clasped gloved hands from her lap, holding one gently. "Ma Cherie, you cannot touch skin?" He asked. She nodded, a slightly angry spark starting to grow in her eye. "That doesn't mean people can't get close or touch you at all, right? You don't have to worry, I'll be careful." He said. Her anger died away and she studied him fiercely, wonder what he was up to.

With his free hand he pulled out a card charging it with ease. He tossed it away, skipping it over the water like a stone. Rogue's eyes followed it intently as it bounced a few times until it exploded. Their eyes met again and Remy spoke softly, his accent thickening. "When my powers developed I kept exploding things that I touched. I exploded the clothes off my back, things I brushed against. I couldn't stop it or control how much charge things had. I hurt members of my family with shrapnel from the explosions. Cherie, I found out I could charge organic matter, too. I couldn't touch anything or anyone. Couldn't eat or sleep without the fear that I'd wake up on a bomb…" he trailed off.

Remy watched the girl closely, her eyes shining with understanding. He understood her better than anyone else had until now. She weighed her options for a few moments, then decided to give him a little more of her painful tale, because he had been so willing to share.

"My first kiss put a boy into a coma for that he never came out of when I was 13. A boy never got such a penalty for stealing a kiss he shouldn't have." She chuckled without humor. "I almost killed Wolverine a few times when he got it in his head to save me." She paused, taking a deep breath. "I keep a piece of each person I've touched inside of my head. A little voice in the back talking to me, some memories, and skills. Supposedly a piece of their powers is in there if they had them. If I had control, the professor & Hank think I could use them all at will."

His eyes got wider, glowing brighter. "Merde." He said. "It's likely that every agency & madman in the world would want you for a weapon or a science project if they found out."

Rogue looked at him gravely. "Oh, I'm sure it will happen again." She said. "It's only a matter of how long I can keep off of their radars."

"Again?" Remy asked, suddenly feeling a fierce protectiveness wash over him. He knew what it was like to be used & abused by people. To be an experiment & always on the run, expecting to be found again at any moment.

Rogue turned her eyes away from him, gently extracting her hand to gesture of in the distance. "Look Remy, the sunset is beautiful out here." He watched the soft light hit her for just a few seconds, and then turned to the horizon.

"That it is". He responded. The two watched the colors change in a trance, enjoying a minute of peace, each wondering silently how long it would last.

Suddenly, they heard a low growl behind them. They turned around quickly, each bracing for a blow that never came. Wolverine was stalking the edge of the bank, heading toward the trees just off of the dock. "Shit" Rogue hissed quietly. "Someone must have snuck onto the grounds. That's our cue to get out of the open."

The pair quickly began rowing toward shore, electing to bank the boat instead of head toward the dock where there might be an ambush set up. Wolverine's warning might have bought them some time until the fight started, but it was definitely going down. Rogue and Gambit calmly climbed from the small craft, securing it tightly to a post on the grassy bank.

They brushed through the grass in near silence. Rogue whispered into his ear "We need to get you out of here. You're likely the objective."

"Gambit doesn't run from a fight. They want me, and then I'd like to face them down." He whispered back.

"And give them exactly what they want? I'm not sure I can allow that." She spat out softly.

"How would you like to distract me, cherie?" He said, winking as he turned toward Wolverine, creeping low through the tall grasses. Rogue glared and followed after, unable to force him to change his course without drawing too much attention to them.

Suddenly, they heard a roar of rage from Wolverine and the sounds of crashing a slashing reached their ears. Rogue fought the instinct to run to her almost father figure teammate and instead reached down to click her x-com on. "We've got action out at the pond. Wolverine is engaged. I have the package, approaching the boathouse. We'll need cover to deliver him." She clicked it onto silent mode, knowing any responses would just draw more attention to their position.

"Delivering a package, ma petite? That sounds like some fun for old Gambit." He teased. Rogue had yet to really see Gambit in action, and his levity as they approached battle was a bit startling. She watched him slip a hand down to the ground and pick up a handful of pebbles. She briefly marveled in the knowledge that Gambit it likely never really run out of weapons.

As they approached the stand of trees, Wolverine came tumbling out toward them. He was visibly bleeding from a severe hit to the skull, and metal glinted out from his skin. He resilient man shook himself out for a second sitting up, and leapt toward the approaching form of his attacker.

Darkness was approaching fast and in the dim light Rogue could only get a sense of the size of the man. Beside her Gambit's eyes glowed a soft red. "That's Sabertooth alright, but he's not alone. I can make out three others in the trees. They're waiting for us to reappear, by the looks of things. Only 1 is watching the mansion."

"Where's the one I can most likely take without raising the others' attention? I'll take one silently, hopefully get a borrowed power."

Gambit gestured far left and went to head right. She grabbed his arm, yanking him with her. "Not alone you don't. They're here for you. We stick together." He frowned at her, clearly unhappy to be under supervision. He preferred fighting alone and against all odds…

The pair silently surrounded the guard closest to the lake banks. They took him one from each side. Gambit approached from the right, making just enough noise to draw his attention, while Rogue snuck up behind him and easily touched his face. The man fell in seconds, and Rogue ducked low, hiding for a moment while she sorted out her jumbled mind. She reached down, taking a lighter out of the man's pocket. Rogue had never thought John would be a part of an attack on the mansion, but Sabertooth bullied him into it sure enough. They didn't work together anymore, really. John also didn't know the other mutants out there with him. That was a problem. Gambit reached down and helped her prop the man up so it looked like he was slacking on the job and not actually unconscious, then the pair crept toward the next sentry. They could still hear Wolverine & Sabertooth growling and cursing as they crashed about, which was a good sign. Without the distraction of his oldest rival, the feral tracker after Gambit would have easily caught up to them already.

The next guard was someone she didn't know. He wore was young and slick looking, but he was not an experienced guard. He didn't hear them coming at all and in the low light, he didn't spot either of them until Rogue stepped out of the trees, drawing his attention as Gambit brought his staff down on the crown of his head. The boy tumbled down, knocked out cold. The Cajun winked at her, mouthing "You're a great distraction." at her, raking his eyes over her silhouette.

The noise, however, drew the attention of a more experienced fighter. The mutant snaked his tongue out like lightning, grabbing Rogue around the ankle. She went flying, slamming into the trunk of the tree he had been hiding in. She shook free of his tongue, backing away from the tree & watching the familiar face. "Toad" she hissed. "I should have known. Sabertooth doesn't have many allies." The man did a jaunty little hop, landing near her and narrowly missing the charged pebble that exploded on his previous perch.

Rogue immediately struck out with a vicious high kick, catching him in the stomach. Toad stumbled back, then easily bounced off of a tree and across the clearing, striking out at Gambit with his nasty hardening saliva. Gambit dodged the first goo ball easily, twirling his staff quickly in front of him as a shield for the second round that came almost immediately after. Rogue attached from the side, swinging a punch into Toad's jaw. He immediately lost his precious traction on the side of the tree and crashed to the ground, and Gambit leapt in to fight him. Rogue knew the sounds of their clash would draw the fourth guard, so she began scanning the trees, confident in Gambit's superior fighting abilities against Toad.

It was then that a man stepped out, blasting her with a wave of thin needle-like spikes. Rogue dodge the largest part of the attack, but caught several in her shoulder. Almost immediately, she knew they were poisoned, and a painful fire spread through her body. She clicked open John's lighter, sending a wave of fire into the man as she fell to one knee. The fire caught onto his clothes, burning him before he'd prepared to fire again, and he desperately ran toward the lake, as rolling wouldn't work with all the spines sticking out of his body.

"Rogue!" Gambit shouted, knowing she'd only used the fire in desperation for fear of drawing attention. He easily batted Toad into a tree and sent a small charged pebble into his chest to knock him out for the count. She pulled herself upright shakily, clinging to the tree stubbornly. It was then that Sabertooth appeared out of the darkness behind the badly hurt girl, grabbing her by the neck. He swung her around between himself and Wolverine.

"Hey runt, you want this girl to live or not?" He rumbled out. "What about you Cajun?" He asked swinging her toward the approaching Gambit. "She's been poisoned pretty badly but I could crush her windpipe right now if either of you make a move. Rogue was growing paler by the second, a sheen of sweat rising on her face as she gasped for air, hands weakly gripping at Sabertooth as he held her aloft like a rag doll. She tried to pull her gloves off, but seemed to be unable to even grasp them enough to pull a hand free. Bloody spines sticking from one side were visible to Gambit with his superior night vision.

His eyes flared a hateful glowing red in rage at the beast as the poised to attack. Suddenly, a blinding flash of light appeared, and a pink woman touched Sabertooth. Wolverine & Gambit leapt at the pair, but crashed through where they had been as another bright flash crashed against their eyes.

Sabertooth was gone, and he had Rogue. The two men looked at each other from the dusty clearing floor, silent.

That was how Storm and Hank found the two, staring at each other in despair. In a clearing that had clearly seen intense battle

"Where is Rogue?" Storm asked in fear.

"Gone." The men bit out in unison.

**Many thanks to all of you that have read, reviewed, and added me to their favorites and story updates! It's pretty good motivation, considering I put this out in my lack of free time... I apologize for the delay on this chapter. Timing indecision and my insane long work hours are to blame, but it is nice and lengthy as a treat.**


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer – Of course I don't own any of these characters or the rights to the X-men (the things I make up are much more bizarre). Maybe someday my evil pet salamander will take over the world and grant me the power. I better treat him to a nice worm real soon…

Chapter 7 – Needles and Pins

"Where to? How?" Storm asked again in fear.

"Sabertooth." The men bit out in unison. "He had a teleporter or something with him." Wolverine added. Gambit reached down and tossed a handful of charged pebbles upward, his eyes burning intensely. He slammed his fist down, and then pulled himself up straight. Logan sheathed his claws and straightened as well.

"Get Chuck." Logan growled. "Stripes is in a bad way, poisoned. We need to get her back now."

Gambit walked over to a nearby tree trunk, pulling several spines similar to those that he had seen in Rogue's shoulder. "Let's get these to Hank. Maybe he has a cure we can take with us when we hunt down that asshole."

With that, the two men turned and sprinted toward the mansion, unwilling to waste time with further talk until they had carried out the first task in getting a rescue operation started. They crashed through the hall and into the elevator doors, indiscriminately knocking people and objects out of their way until the steel doors closed behind them and the elevator began its climb downward. Wolverine tapped his foot angrily, while Gambit carefully studied the quills clasped in his hand.

When the elevator doors finally dragged open, Gambit hustled to the right and Wolverine headed left with equal haste. Gambit slid into the med bay quickly, the door swinging wildly behind him. "HANK!" He called out, casting his eyes about wildly. "It's urgent… It's Rogue." He plead.

The bubbly blue behemoth dropped from the ceiling in front to the clearly adrenaline fueled man. "Where is the young lady then?" He asked calmly, looking about for the southern belle.

"She gone, mon ami. Taken by them. We were attacked out on the pond." He drew a deep breathe before continuing. "A mutant hit her with these" he said, thrusting the offending objects toward the scientist. "Then, Sabertooth snagged her and was threatening to kill her until they were teleported away." He looked around, frantic. "There must be an antidote. Please?" He asked.

Beast had already snatched the quills out of his till extended hand and was extracting the poison as Gambit finished. "Let us hope so. I will analyze the substance immediately. Please Remy, calm yourself while I work."

"They were after me… I can't sit by calmly while that disgusting man has her at his mercy. God knows what the people after me will do to someone with a power like hers, if she survives the poison!" He growled out in distress. The lanky man pulled his hair as he began pacing back and forth in the lab. Hank could only heave a deep sigh and continue his work as quickly as possible.

Wolverine skidded to a halt outside cerebro. As he had expected, the professor had headed in there at the first hint of trouble to try and identify their attackers' motives & weaknesses. "Chuck, let me in." He growled at the door.

"Yes, Logan, please tell me what has happened." He said as the locks disengaged and the steel doors slid open. "I am quite concerned."

"Sabertooth happened. I smelled him out there and found him getting ready to ambush Rogue & Gambit. I warned them as best I could before he attacked me. He wasn't alone, though. He brought in some distractions. I smelled 4 others, and a teleporter showed up at the end. Anyway, the slime ball is getting smarter…. Didn't rush in alone like he usually would. He had Pyro, Toad, and two new guys we've never seen. I never even saw them guys, just smelled them. He kept me busy, and Rogue & Gambit snuck in, taking out at least two of the other guys. Somehow, Rogue got hit with some poison quills, and Sabertooth nabbed her. He used her as a shield until the teleporter showed up and snaked the whole lot of them, as far as I saw."

"I see. This is unlike Sabertooth. Perhaps his new employer has better control over him than Magneto? He does not often plan or follow the plans of others."

"It was smart Chuck. Not like him at all, except the way he fought me and the way he was looking at Rogue while she dangled by her neck in his claws, too drugged to even kick him." Wolverine took out a cigar, clamping it in his teeth nervously. The growled around it, finishing his evaluation. "He knows that damn Cajun will do just about anything for Rogue. Somehow he must have been watching those two real closely, because it ain't obvious. He's expecting Gambit to give himself up or go in on a suicide mission to save her, and I don't doubt both are a real possibility."

"I would also suspect him of similar actions. If you can keep him here for now, I will do my best to locate her. I assume she may be unconscious at this point, but with any luck I can track her by the psychic fuzz she tends to generate. It is doubtful we'll luck out and get a clear reading by her using her powers. I fear we are up against someone quite formidable."

The professor then turned around, replacing the cerebro helmet with two long silver tubes extending into the console back on his head. Wolverine took the queue and silently turned and walked out.

True to Logan's appraisal, Remy was busy trying to figure out just exactly how to go about extracting Rogue from her current situation, and his best optioned seemed to be to try and trade himself in for her safety. He also knew, however, that anyone with have a brain would double cross him to keep her for whatever they wanted him for… A two for one special, if you will.

"Chuck's looking for her now. We'll find something. If not her, one of the other mutants will show up for sure." Logan looked around, noticing Hank furiously staring into a long and complex looking computer read-out. "How's the antidote coming?" He asked, fearfully.

"I can have something synthesized for this in about two hours. It's very similar to the neurotoxins of puffer fish." He said, moving toward a large centrifugal machine with a test tube in his hand. "How many of these quills would you say hit Rogue, by chance?" He asked.

"Three, maybe four." Remy responded. "She managed to avoid most of them."

"Oh my. She will still be feeling those effects for quite some time. If I calculate the approximate dose of each quill and her current body parameters…" he trailed off, doing some mental calculations. "Two days easily, maybe three unless we get this to her right away. That is, of course, assuming they give her water and food and do not push her physically."

"So you're saying that it'll be longer, then?" Logan asked. Hank did not respond, he had stuck his head inside one of his machines and was rapidly typing away at the keys that were diminutive next to his large fingers.

"Keep working Hank. It's time we brief the team and get everyone on standby. You don't mess with one X-man and not expect some retribution. Come on Gambit." He said, snagging the younger man by his collar as he tried to sneak off to the hangers. The gruff Canadian pulled him toward the war room with stern purpose. "I'm gonna cut these jerks to ribbons if I have to, and you're gonna help us get ready."

Things were very fuzzy. She was certain that there had been a blinding light, and then she was somewhere else. Someone had tied her hands and feet, thought she had no idea who.

At first, she had thought she couldn't open her eyes, but over time she had realized that she had some sort of bag over her head. It was hot and itchy, but at least she didn't have to look at her miserable situation.

Usually bad guys taunted you ruthlessly, spilling their plans in triumphant smugness. Sabertooth, however had only really grumbled and growled around. He had set her down some time ago, and was milling about wherever they were; based on the small sounds she could hear outside of her own labored breathing in the stifling sack.

It vaguely felt like her wounds had closed over with dried blood, but it could have been any other substance. All she really knew was that she didn't feel the warm, slippery oozing feeling sliding down her skin like snails that bleeding usually accompanied. Whatever was in those quills was still doing a number on her, though. Rogue could barely remember her own name or lift her head, and only the instincts of someone in danger too often kept her straining to observe and access the situation.

Suddenly, the soft rustling stilled, and she heard a deep inhalation to her left. A low rumble sounded, and she realized that something must be setting Sabertooth on edge. It was stunning to think that anyone other than Wolverine might have that effect on the vicious, fearless man. It was way too early for Logan to be here, so things were not looking good.

"Sabertooth, I was to be notified immediately when you acquired the targets!" There was a brief pause during which Rogue assumed this new player was looking around. I believe that I told you I wanted them both." A deep and slimy voice snapped at the brute. "You know I don't tolerate failure."

"And I didn't bring her to you because my plan isn't finished yet. I need her for the rest of the plan to work. You'll get your damn results." The man replied. He seemed to be exercising amazing control for him, again concerning Rogue.

"Well, take care of this one until you do, then. Let's at least get that blood cleaned off or something. She better be functional when I get her."

"Yeah. Sure. The plan would probably work better if she looked like shit, though." The man growled. The other man had already started walking away, though, which meant that Sabertooth was going to do absolutely none of what he had requested.

Rogue shifted her uncomfortable body as best she could, unable to really control her limbs and too restrained to accomplish much anyway. Her dry tongue felt too heavy to ask the questions hazily drifting in and out of her mind, but Sabertooth would never answer her anyway.

It was obvious, at least, that they needed her and Remy for whatever their plans were now. And, it seemed an awful lot like they were using her as bait. She hoped that Cajun knew what he was getting into….

**Again with the many thanks to all of you that have read, reviewed, and added me to their favorites and story updates! I know lots of authors enjoy giving lengthy responses, but I find that annoying as a story reader, so please know your input has been seen & enjoyed enough to keep me going on this little project. There will be delays…. Life is intense right now.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer –I do not own the world of mutants. I do not own any movie rights, comic rights, or otherwise, and alas Marvel shall never be mine. Maybe I could name a pet Stan Lee, but he might sue me. **

Chapter 8 – Sinking in

Gambit looked decidedly upset. In fact, for a man with a legendary poker face, he looked downright homicidal & depressed at the same time. He had been stuck in the de-briefing room with Cyclops and Wolverine for at least six hours (with a brief meal break of course) beating the situation like a dead horse. He'd have blown something up and made a quick escape if anyone had a clue yet where he should be heading to rescue his friend.

Unfortunately, Cerebro was working away, Hank was synthesizing compounds, and he had to answer the same 4 questions over and over again. He was hoping that any minute now they would either dash off to the Blackbird or let him go wash the battle filth off at least.

He hadn't listened to a thing that had been said for at least an hour. Remy found himself wondering how Rogue was instead. Was she alright? Unconscious? What if the sick puppy Sabertooth had done something awful to her?

Worries would only lead to foolish mistakes, though. He consciously turned his thoughts to planning his revenge. First on Sabertooth for hurting Rogue, then on whichever crazed lunatic was out to get him this time. Maybe he could start a club. Repetitive Targets Anonymous. It was pretty clear he would have to invite Rogue as a member.

"Gumbo!" Wolverine called out, ruining his musings.

"Oye?"

"Get some dinner, clean up, and hit the sack. We're done here." With this, Logan sauntered out of the room, turning out the lights on him. Remy's eyes smoldered in the darkened room as he rose to do exactly as instructed. That could only mean one thing – no mission tonight. He easily navigated through the dark room and out the door to follow orders.

He found the kitchen in a daze, eating whatever was nearest to his hand when he opened the refrigerator door. Then, he shuffled off to the showers in as much of a fog, running through probabilities & lists of equipment he might need to break Rogue out. The lovely lady's friends did not have quite the caliber of toys that his connections did… Maybe he should make a few calls, he mused.

The shower felt like absolute divinity. His tired, sore, and generally overworked body relished in the feeling of soothing heat & steam. The dirt & sweat of the day disappeared quickly, and his thoughts sharpened exponentially as the layers of ick disappeared down the drain. The briefing had been a waste of time. He was going to have to do some hacking before bed in addition to the calls. Renewed, he set off with swifter steps.

Rogue was unsure how long she'd been laying in the same position on the floor. Her consciousness came and went in waves, and the absence in feeling to her limbs coupled with her stifled senses left each second feeling like eternity. It sounded like Sabertooth had left. There were no growling or scratching noises at the moment, meaning he was probably out of the room.

Groggily she tried again to pull at her bonds or roll herself over. Only the tiniest of movements resulted in her efforts, and she had to gasp for air through the humiliating hood over her face. The only comfort she had for now was knowing that if anyone tried to touch her inappropriately in her helpless state, they'd get one hell of a surprise.

Around her she could hear the sounds of wheel charts far away, as well as doors opening & closing. Wherever she had ended up was obviously a working operation. She didn't have any clues as to what they did there might be yet, though.

Suddenly a door opened close enough to her to renew her attempts at struggling. Soft, light footsteps approached. Rogue braced herself for something. A kick, a taser, who knew what might be coming her way.

"Well hello there." A warm female voice said. "I'm not sure what is going on here, but I've been informed that I'm on guard duty while Sabertooth takes care of something. I took the liberty of bringing you some food & water." Rogue felt small, strong hands lift her up onto something. It felt like a chair or a cot possibly, from the distance change. The hands leaned her against a solid surface carefully.

The back was slowly pulled from her head, and the sudden influx of fresh air and dim light assaulted her deprived senses. She blinked as fiercely as she could. Even moving her eyelids seemed difficult, as though they were in slow motion.

Before her, bent over examining her closely was a blond woman with startlingly deep blue eyes. She appeared athletic & capable. In her hazy state, Rogue could not help but think that this stranger didn't really seem insane enough to be working with Sabertooth. Maybe they were paying her really well…

"Not much of a talker, aye?" the woman asked. "No, I kid. I know you've been drugged or poisoned or something. No one can fake being dead weight that well." The woman studied her for a few minutes.

"Now, how am I supposed to feed you? I guess we'll start with water." She opened a bottle, putting a bendy straw in the top. She then slid the straw into Rogue's mouth and gently squeezed a small amount out by tilting the bottle. The cool liquid slid over her swollen & dry tongue easily, soothing the burning tightness of her dehydrated tissue. Eagerly she looked at the woman, wanting more.

The bombshell blond continued to give her small sips in this way until half of the bottle was gone. "Hmm. Food. Well, I guess they did give me some pudding. Think you can eat that?" She asked. The lack of any visible movement or response made it clear that was probably out of the question. "Well, I don't think this arrangement is going to work. How are you supposed to pee or eat?" She asked to no one in particular.

Rogue watched her, curious why this woman seemed to care. She had been left on the floor for who knows how long without food or medical attention, so the sudden fussing seemed suspicious. The blond noticed that Rogue was studying her, and seemed to nod to herself.

"Sabertooth can't even feed himself a decent meal, let alone take care of his assignments. I'm going to take you over to the medical center." She reached down and picked up the bound woman with ease. This was very shocking to Rogue. The stranger wasn't even straining to hold her up. It was right then that Sabertooth walked in.

"What are you doing?" he growled out.

"I'm trying to take care of this poor girl. The boss sent me to check on her while you were on a mission."

"Yeah, well this one's mine. Get the hell out of here and leave my business alone!" the man roared. He slammed one meaty fist into the woman holding her's arms. Rogue tumbled to the floor, unable to catch herself or deflect her landing at all. Her body hit the floor with a resounding thump, and all of the air rushed from her lungs.

Sabertooth just laughed. "Asshole!" the blond yelled, punching him. The big man slid back, running into the wall. He then crouched to pounce on her, but she had already turned on her heel and stormed out. The door slammed loudly behind her, sending a ringing sound through the hallways.

Then, Rogue heard the familiar low growl in his throat. The feral man reached down, hauling her up by her bound ankles. Dangling upside down at his mercy had to be one of the worst feelings she could imagine with the blood rushing to her head, her arms still useless, and the distinct impression she was hanging like a carcass in a meat locker. Then, strangely enough, he laughed. He didn't even sound menacing while he laughed. It went on for a few seconds, then cut off abruptly. Something was wrong.

Without another thought, he tossed her like a rag doll into the closest wall. She landed on the small cot face first. The resultant throbbing pain sat like a dull promise across her entire back. Rogue could only imagine how bad it would hurt if her nerves weren't so messed up. She waited, unable to do retaliate, sure that the next blow would be swift & brutal.

Instead, Sabertooth gently raked his claws down one leg, drawing just a pair of thin lines of blood. He licked his claws, doing so in her sight line deliberately. "Just wait frail." He said, then turned and exited the door. His footsteps did not leave, though. He sat waiting just outside.

**Thanks and accolades to those fantastic readers that have offered up their comments, book markings, favoritism, etc, etc. It's nice to know someone is out there reading this thing and loving this site & genre as much as I do!**


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer –I am not the triumphant creator of the Amazing X-men. Marvel does not sign my checks. I own not a single right and have nothing to go after. I apologize for these inadequacies. **

Chapter 9 – Each Beat

**Thanks and accolades to those fantastic readers that have offered up their comments, book markings, favoritism, etc, etc. It's nice to know someone is out there reading this thing and loving this site & genre as much as I do!**

Word had spread like wildfire that there had been a battle on school grounds yesterday. The entire mansion was abuzz with curiosity and speculation. It seemed that no one really knew what had gone on, except the senior staff and Remy. He could feel the students watching him, desperately wanting to ask him for information.

Kitty was the first student to gather the bravery to ask someone for the story. She had stared at Remy whenever she saw him throughout the day, and when he finally got up from Dinner, she was on his heels. "So Remy, like, what happened yesterday? She asked excitedly, pulling on his sleeve.

"Whatever do you mean petite?" He evaded.

"I heard a rumor that there was a battle by the Boathouse. No one has seen Rogue. Is she hurt or just pulling another disappearing act?"

"It be both." He said sadly. "I'm not sure if I'm allowed to tell you the story, though. Don't they make you kids go through briefings too?"

"Yes, but they haven't done it yet. The Professor is still in Cerebro and Ororro & Hank are working on things too. The rumors are getting out of hand." The small girl looked worriedly at him. "Rogue – is she going to be alright?"

"I don't know." He stated, trying to disguise his worry. Kitty's eyes grew wide at this admission, with what looked suspiciously like tears welling up. Remy could not handle that… Not from her, not about Rogue, and definitely not right now. Each beat of his heart pounded in his ears. "Petite" He said "Rogue is real good at getting out of scrapes from what I hear. I think we'll get her back, hopefully not too much worse for the wear." He said to her, extracting himself from her grip.

He had some goodies to pick up anyway, he told himself as he walked away. His contacts had sent him replacements of his favorite tools that had been lost when he was forced to take up residence with the X-men. They were just outside of the mansion grounds, and he needed to get to them quickly and without anyone noticing he was leaving campus. He'd be better prepared to rescue his favorite River Rat soon.

With that thought, Remy set out on a wandering path around the mansion, hoping to lose anyone that might follow him with more questions.

Rogue hated the damn cot. She hated the metal room. She hated the sound of Sabertooth growling the lyrics to country songs just outside her door, which he had done for what seemed like eternity. Especially since he didn't know any of the words and was mostly making the songs sound creepy.

Mostly, though, she hated being incapable of doing anything at all. By definition she was a wanderer, a fighter, and a doer of tasks.

She had noticed the lights going out some time ago, and Sabertooth had stopped singing or making noise. It seemed likely that he had finally gone off to sleep. Thus, she was busy trying to figure out a way to get the her body to respond enough to finally accomplish something. Anything more than a toe wiggle would be welcome.

It was more than a little shocking for her when the door creaked open slowely. Whoever had entered didn't turn off the lights, and that set the woman on immediate alarm. Nothing good came from creaking cell doors in the dark. Rogue increased her efforts to struggle upward.

"Hey… Don't worry it's me again." The warm female voice from earlier called out in the dark. A flashlight flickered to life, and the pale blond hair and skin of the woman who'd given her water earlier glowed white in the light of a weak flashlight. The woman turned the light down toward the ground and advanced quickly. "I couldn't let you just sit here like this. I'm going to take you to a restroom and get you some more water and such."

Rogue felt shock run through her system as the woman carefully hoisted her up and carried her over to the small restroom in her cell. She hadn't even been able to see it from her positions earlier, and was grateful that Sabertooth had left her hood off when he had returned last time.

The kind woman assisted her in relieving herself, which was embarrassing but so badly needed, Rogue never would have complained. Then, the blond sat her down and gave her some sort of smoothie through a straw. Rogue knew she should be less trusting & more suspicious, but felt desperate for the calories… Her stomach had been in hungry knots for what felt like forever, and the liquid was cool and soothing.

Her eyes misted over slightly in gratitude. The kind woman leaned over and whispered "I'm Carol. I hope the scientists have the sense to get you away from Sabertooth soon. He's insane."

Suddenly, the door thrust open with a bang, and a familiar horrible growl resounded throughout the echo prone chamber.

"Fuck." Carol spat out, and all the light in the room died.

Remy easily slipped off of the mansion's grounds and collected his treasures. Each object in the box put him more at ease and left him feeling one step closer to rescuing Rogue. (Damn did he owe that girl a favor, after all.) He had his trusty adamantium staff. His tiny & untraceable laptop & phone were back in his possession. His grappling hooks, extra cards, the ever impressive set of lock picks he loved… An assortment of other fun toys, each item so useful to his trade.

He quickly hid the items on his person and slipped back into the mansion. It was a laugh, really, how easily he could get around the high tech security systems here. They were no match to his contacts, training, tech, and style. The worst part about being so good, though, was that you couldn't ever really tell anyone about it.

He had already discovered that Sabertooth had been on his tail for several weeks from his contacts. He had apparently been contracted by a small company that was, in fact, a front for a secret project of a very well know scientific & energy corporation. What he didn't know, however, was where the heck they might have taken Rogue. The company listed over 50 properties, and it was more than likely that the one she had landed in (if they even risked taking her to their properties) was not one of their legal holdings or rentals.

Now that he had his information & toys, it was past time he talked to the X-men and compared notes. Perhaps his information coupled with theirs would be enough to send out a search party.

Normally, he would never dream of working with this team. He wouldn't share his information, and no way in hell would he tip anyone off that he was anything other than a drifting mutant… But this had to be done, and fast. Rogue was depending on all of them, and he wouldn't be the one to let her down.


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer –I am not the profitable creator of the Amazing X-men. I have some of their comic books, but I own not a single right and have nothing but top secret pie recipes to my name. I apologize for these inadequacies. **

Chapter 10 Breakdance

The darkness in the cell fell immediately, shot upward. Sabertooth was growling, or perhaps cursing. It was often difficult to tell with that man. Rogue was immediately let of go by Carol, and slid over with a soft thump onto the cot. The smoothie dropped to the ground, mostly gone, but splattered onto the floor nonetheless.

Carol moved soundlessly. The only indication she moved at all was the breeze over Rogue's face and the changing patterns of darkness, which danced before her eyes. Sabertooth growled loudly, leaping further into the darkness of the cell with a whooshing sound. Rogue could barely make out the flash of his eyes & teeth in the dim light, and immediately feared for the kind woman that had helped her moments before.

Sabertooth did not manage to connect, however. He instead crashed sharply into Rogue's cot. The impact and the large man's added weight knocked the assembly from its brackets, and Rogue tumbled to the floor with Sabertooth and a heap of metal and stiff cotton. The dampness of the smoothie splatters soaked into her side while she lay paralyzed & stunned beneath the wrecked furniture & hulking beast of a man.

Sabertooth roared in rage, scrambling upward and away from her, barely managing to avoid accidentally touching the young woman's exposed skin where her clothing had been torn. "Hold still you bitch." He spit out in anger, swiping at the air in front of him violently. He sniffed loudly, trying to pick up Carol's location more precisely, swiping in a seemingly random pattern.

The woman laughed softly. Everything was silent for a moment, until a loud smacking sound issued out from the darkness, followed by the whistle of Sabertooth flying through the air. The big man barreled into the wall, hitting it hard enough to dent in the concrete and send out a small cloud of powderized acrid smelling concrete. Rogue could hear him hauling himself up, and make out his fuzzy shape across the cell. Carol was hard to follow. She appeared to be popping from one place to another.

That was quite a hit, but Sabertooth was already healing, and severely pissed off.

Given her less than stellar condition, Rogue couldn't tell if she was imagining things or not. Her breathing became ragged & frantic as she tried to sit up, to move, to do anything to help sway the fight in Carol's favor. She didn't know what Carol's powers were, other than incredible strength, and this fight was starting to look like someone might die.

Remy found himself in Xavier's office almost immediately after he had put away his tools. Time was ticking, and he couldn't help but feel a deep urgency. He waited, consciously forcing himself to adopt a casual, lounging pose. He found it was often best to look & act relaxed in tense situations. It provides you a perceived edge. He was a master at that, among other things.

Xavier rolled in a few moments later, having felt Remy's desire to meet as he exited Cerebro. The telepath was exhausted, having been in and out of Cerebro for the better part of a day and a half, but he had some news at least. He settled behind his desk quickly, folding his hands across the desktop, and leaned forward, eager for the exchange about to happen.

Wolverine, in full uniform, stomped into the room, taking a place near the window without a greeting. Remy was not surprised to see him there. He'd probably come as soon as he heard the elevator coming up from the basement, ready to hound Xavier about Rogue. He'd noticed that the older man was fiercely protective, and seemed especially fond of her.

"Lets get started then, shall we?" Xavier asked. "I have not found Rogue. I have, however gotten a general fix on Sabertooth. He's been moving around quite a bit, and occasionally been masked from me, but he has been returning to a particular area on a regular basis."

"Where?" Wolverine growled out. "Let's get the others ready and send in a rescue party."

"It's not as easy as all that. We'd have to send in a search party. I've managed to pinpoint a twenty some mile radius area that he's in, but no more specifically than that."

"Xavier, Remy made some calls while you were searching. I found a few people that have heard rumors about people looking for me, and such, and found out more about Sabertooth's surveillance on me. I came up with the name of a corporation that is likely involved in this & fifty some properties that they own or rent. Maybe if we compare notes, we'll yet some answers…" the young southern man trailed off. He wasn't sure how seriously Xavier would take his information to be, but as a telepath chances were very good the man had a least some inkling of the Remy's connections.

Interesting that he let him remain here… The fear of whom or what was after him must have been great indeed to risk exposing these innocents to someone like him, Remy mused.

"Please, let's see your list." Xavier requested. Remy produced a laptop from seemingly thin air, and immediately flicked open the screen to a map with all 50 locations flagged.

Xavier pulled out his own printed out map, and Logan calmly moved to stand behind the man & look over his shoulder. "Well, it looks like there are only 2 places that it's likely to be Chuck." He ground out. Somehow Gambit felt that his tone sounded relieved.

"So?" Remy asked, eagerly.

"We go find her as soon as the jet is ready. Either of you got a hunch which might be the more likely location?" Remy swiveled his laptop around & quickly called up some images of the two locations in question. The trio poured over them quickly and carefully, eyes scanning for any hints as to what might be going on behind the scenes at each place.

"They're nearly identical." Xavier sighed out. "Either one is a prime location for some sort of secretive operations. Based on this, I would say we start here." He said, pointing to one of the map points. "He's been closest to this complex the most recently." Wolverine locked eyes with Gambit, who returned the look.

He could feel his eyes flare red with intensity. Wolverine smirked, and offered him a curt nod. "We go as soon as the jet's fueled. Gumbo, you're coming with us."

"Wolverine, you cannot simply take their initial target right to them!" Xavier pleaded.

"You wanna tell him he has to stay behind?" Logan asked gruffly.

"Gambit wouldn't miss this for the world." Remy declared, glaring at Xavier for the implied threat to make him stay behind. "These assholes are gonna get their just deserts… Taking an innocent girl, stalking mutants to exploit them. I'm sick of these bastards crawling out of the woodwork every time I turn around!" Remy snarled. He suddenly stood up straight, yanking his hands off of the desk to silence the inner desire to charge it just enough to drive his point home. His honesty surprised even him in that moment and the usually calculating & controlled mutant paused in shock.

"Alright then. It's settled." Wolverine said, nodding his approval. "Don't worry Chuck. We'll get stripes back and take these guys down a peg while we're at it." With that the two men turned and strode out of the room with speed and purpose, one moving with a soundless grace, and the other with a bulldog's swagger and heavy steps. Action, explosions, & probable death were less than an hour away, and for the odd pair heading toward the basement levels, that was more soothing than the average man could comprehend.

**Thanks again to you kind readers. I'll try to stay more on track with my writing… Damn overtime just keeps piling up & keeping me from my hobbies.**


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer –I am neither a member of nor the creator of the Amazing X-men. I would be happy to take them off your hands, though… Or could I at least draw a few panels? Anyway, please accept my apologies for the delay. Storyline indecision had me over a barrel!**

Chapter 11- I Wanna Smash It Up

Wolverine went straight to work calling out the search & rescue team. He'd quickly reviewed the active & on duty rosters of the mansion & picked his best bets for getting back the Rogue. He personally intended to track down whomever had the balls to sick Sabertooth on one of his charges.

He smiled a wolfish smile as he quickly slid past the X-men shuffling into the locker rooms and into the hanger. The jet was already fueled up. He'd done that as soon as Gambit's debriefing was over. He busied himself loading communication devices, thermal scanners, and a variety of other high tech toys into the back of the jet. As an afterthought, he tossed in the ever ready box of water & high energy snacks that would likely be desperately needed once the mission came to a close.

He found himself whistling under his breath, much to his surprise. It was almost time to kick some ass, take some names, and get back one of their own. If he was lucky, he could tear a hole into Sabertooth while doing all three…. It would almost be like Christmas, expect for the kidnapping evil plot foiling part. But, come to think of it, wasn't that exactly what had happened last Christmas? He rolled that question to the back of his mind to be looked at later.

He finished loading the jet up just as Storm, Shadowcat, Beast, Nightcrawler, Colossus, & Gambit arrived. He looked them all over quickly as they filed onto the jet, handing out folders & communicators as they filed past. It was going to be a good group, and they'd get the job done right. He wanted to keep this mission small, a surgical attack instead of a big show.

That damn Ice kid had pleaded to come along, but he couldn't be trusted to use his head where Rogue was involved. (Either of them.) Plus, he really got a kick out of telling him he wasn't wanted. The disappointment had been most deserved and entertaining. He was sure Rogue would thank him for sparing her the annoyance later when they dragged her ass back home.

It had been even funnier telling him that Gambit, who wasn't even a member of the team got to come along for the ride… The look on the annoying kid's face had been priceless.

The hatch to the Blackbird slowly closed behind him, and he hauled his heavy metal bones up the ramp and into the belly of the sleek black machine to let the team know exactly what they'd be doing out there today.

Rogue silently cursed her helplessness as the pair of powerhouses continued to wage a horrible battle around her. Somehow, they both were still going though the sounds and rubble in the room made it seem impossible that they were still able to fight. Her right side was so cold, and she could feel the dampness of smoothie, which at least helped keep her grounded in reality.

The poison felt as though it was beginning to let up, but still limited her focus and ability to move to a very high degree. Not that with her hands and feet bound she'd be doing much moving anyway. Not to mention those nasty injuries that no one had bothered to take care of from the fight that had taken place so long ago. Her latest aches and pains were easily forgotten in the fearful darkness as she struggled to follow what was happening in the dark and dank combat zone she'd been housed in.

Her attention was abruptly slammed back to the forefront as the combatants rammed into the ground beside her so hard that she bounced upward off of the cement floor. Silently she prayed that was Carol's work, but she couldn't see much in the dark. She could smell the blood, though. Blood and concrete dust coated her senses and a sudden premonition that things were about to go horribly wrong flooded her. Little particles fell around her in the dark.

Rogue tried desperately to scoot back on the floor, further away from the two angry mutants wrestling around. She managed only to nudge herself enough to roll onto her back, which was an even worse position, limiting her visibility.

Why hadn't anyone come to break up this fight yet? The two worked together, so shouldn't their boss be monitoring for this sort of thing? Didn't they know Sabertooth was an insane killing raping monster? Then again, they had left her alone with him…

Her foggy side track slammed to a halt as a body rammed into her. Rogue tried to struggle, to pull away and avoid contact, but was too late. Sabertooth grabbed her harshly as he scrambled upward, and swung her into Carol by the legs.

She slammed into the other woman like a human bat, knocking her backward. Sabertooth released his hold on her on impact, and the two landed in a heap on the floor after a brief and painful connection with the ceiling that caused a seeming explosion of rubble and material around them. The pair of women landed in a tangled heap, and Rogue suddenly felt the dizzying rush of her powers flaring to life under the suffocating mass of destroyed structure.

The pair struggled, trying to free themselves. Rogue desperately wished once again that she could turn off her terrible skin to no avail. She could feel Carol's life rushing into her mind and could do nothing to slow the tide.

Carol cried out in pain and confusion, attempting to right the rubble and end the draining, but Rogue's skin sapped her energy too quickly, and the woman struggled desperately to climb from under the fallen ceiling. She sobbed once, weakly before loosing consciousness next to the battered prisoner.

Rogue found herself buried under the onslaught of memories, thoughts, emotions, and energy of Carol. She tried to ignore the whirlwind of information and instead focused completely on trying to move her body away from the still form of Carol. As she struggled with the new mind tearing through hers and her state of poisoned paralysis, Sabertooth began throwing rubble off of his prey.

Rogue was actually relieved when he finally grabbed her tied ankles and tugged her free from Carol. Unfortunately, though, it might already be too late for the woman that had shown her such kindness. A tear snuck from her eyes at the thought of her skin murdering the only hope she had in this place.

That's when Sabertooth's hand slipped, hitting bare skin where he had shredded her leg earlier and exposed her flesh. The connection started up again, her skin no less hungry despite all it had taken from Carol. The beastly man roared in rage, struggling to let go of her, and finally managed to pry his talons loose from his captive.  
>"Stupid Bitch." Sabertooth spat out angrily. "I don't really think I'm gonna keep you alive until that damn Cajun shows up now. You did take care of one problem for me though." He grunted, spitting on the prone form of Carol. The young woman suddenly smiled at him. The idiot wasn't thinking fast enough, and the poison was burning out of her body with the help of his mutation.<p>

What the big cat didn't know was that Rogue wasn't in control anymore. He and Carol were warring with one another in her head. Carol's absorption had overwhelmed Rogue to the point that when Sabertooth began to be absorbed as well, her conscious mind tuned out.

Her body awoke with perfect access to Sabertooth & Carol's powers, but only Carol's mindset. Sabertooth suddenly flinched when he saw the eyes of his captive open. They were blue…. Carol's psyche wasted no time ripping the bindings on her hands & feet apart with little effort, and then floated up off of the floor.

"You're going to regret this Sabertooth. This girl thinks she killed by body!" Carol shouted. "I'll rip you into so many pieces you never come back together." And with that, the super strong, invulnerable woman with deadly skin and flight abilities launched herself at Sabertooth.

It was time for the real fight to begin…

**Thanks again to you kind readers, reviewers, & favoritizers. Yes I made that word up. It's fun to say. Try it. You do provide good motivation!**


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer –I own none of our favorite characters utilized below. If I did, they would be in my salamander's tank, as this apartment isn't too big. No suing, thanks!**

Chapter 12- Bringing Down the House

Sabertooth dodged wildly as Carol hurled herself at him in a terrible state of rage. Her snarl closely resembled one of Sabertooth's own expressions as she quickly turned and launched herself at him again. Using her devastatingly fast flight abilities, she easily caught the man, and launched straight upward, slamming the man up through the remaining ceiling & floor of the cell, then faster and faster up through the 4 additional stories of the building.

The feral mutant limply looked down at her as she sped fifty feet into the air beyond the roof, and then abruptly stopped. Carol then swung angrily, sending the mutant hurtling down into the building faster than gravity along could manage to propel him.

Sabertooth hit the graveled roof surface, his body tearing through the layers of bitumen, insulation, and steel decking easily due to his high velocity. The feral came to a halt on the floor below. He was ragged, badly bleeding, & broken beyond imagination. Even in his worst fights the feral could not remember being so brutalized, as his healing factor usually performed much faster.

"That stupid leeching bitch." He wheezed out, managing to roll over and pull himself up to his knees after a moment. He could hear Carol tearing through the roof structure above, tossing huge chunks of steel away to get down into the building & attack him again. He barely made it to his feet when the borrowed body slammed into him again. He felt helpless for a moment as she swung him in a wide arc, tossing him through the nearest wall.

Sabertooth's eyes grew glassy and desperate as he struggled upward again. For the first time the notion that he might not win this fight flashed before his eyes. The real question though was if he would survive it either…

Wolverine, Storm, Shadowcat, Beast, Nightcrawler, Colossus, & Gambit eagerly awaited the end of their flight. The team had been informed of the state they should expect to find Rogue in, and of the imperative that they extract her and keeping everyone from becoming a captive.

"We believe that these people are hoping to use Gambit & Rogue in mutant experimentation." Beast stated to the team. "We cannot allow anyone to fall into their hands, and we should attempt to ensure that they gain little knowledge of the nature of any of our abilities, lest we attract their interest & become the next targets." The team nodded respectfully, their thoughts less than focused on Beast's warnings.

"I have downloaded a map of the first facility for us to review. I'll bring up the plans now and we can discuss our best location to infiltrate the building un-noticed." Storm said, bringing up some technical drawings on a large flat screen mounted to a tabletop in the jet's rear area. "The building has 5 levels, one of which is underground. Of course, these are the documented areas. There is a good chance that there are additional underground levels if they are in fact conducting experiments on mutants." Storm explained switching to the next level of the plans.

Gambit's eyes danced greedily over the plans, his training quickly kicking in and highlighting areas of interest to him. He waited for Storm to cycle through each level before devising a basic plan. "Stormy, could you call up the Basement level again?" He asked. "I think I see our way in." The regal woman easily switched back to the first level, and Remy extended one gloved hand to point. "There. This is our in. There will be at least two cameras, but we can hack in and disrupt their signal or I can short the power for the building."

"Like, I can hack into almost anything. I wouldn't know how to shut the cameras down, but if I can get you into the security network, could you?" Shadowcat asked timidly. It was clear from the expression on her face that this hacking ability was not generally known about by the X-Men. Beast looked suitably surprised, which was a funny expression for a fanged blue man to be wearing.

"Oui petite. I can do that if you can get me in fast." Gambit said, then the walked the rest of the team through the schematics quickly, pointing out likely security threats, while Wolverine pointed out likely holding locations for captives.

"It's funny Mon Ami, that you don't remember anyone from your past, but somehow it seems like all that black ops training is still kicking around in that shiny skull." Gambit commented to Wolverine as the jet signaled the warning bell for the approach of their destination. Wolverine nodded, wondering about that himself, as he took a seat to start the landing procedures. "Maybe that Adamantium bullet you saw denting my cranium was more intentional than anyone thought." He growled out, turning to focus on the controls.

Sabertooth was running. Carol had put him through the wringers easily, and he wasn't sure how much longer his healing factor could keep up. The crazed woman had already managed to destroy one building so much that is was slowly collapsing. Unfortunately she had done that by using his body as a sledgehammer. That wasn't much fun, of course, but the normally ferocious man had never been inclined to flee like this. It had occurred to him as he peeled himself up out of a heap of collapsed concrete structure and twisted rebar chunks that he was damn lucky she hadn't thought to bring out Rogue's powers yet.

It was a little know fact that the only way to really kill someone with a healing factor like his was to steal his birthright away, then brutalize him. He had heard that this frail looking little mutant had almost killed wolverine once, and in her new body's occupant's rage it wasn't a stretch to think that for once, he might not be able to put himself back together again.

The big man dashed into the only still stable looking building of the compound, using the fleeing humans to somewhat cover him. The big beast skidded on the linoleum, running as fast as he could. Unfortunately, he had yet to come up with a way to get past Carol's invulnerability and cause some actual damage of his own. His only real hope lay in that usually Rogue's stolen powers & psyches wore off over time. If he could outrun her long enough, he might have an opening.

Meanwhile, Carol was floating through the hallways behind him at an almost leisurely pace. Her rage had cooled to a slick white hot malice, and she was toying with the brute running from her. Absentmindedly she would punch structural columns here and there as she went, gradually wrecking the place that led to her death.

She caught Sabertooth easily, and smiled in a twisted fashion before she latched onto one of his arms. She crushed the bones in his wrist with barely a pinky squeeze. Sabertooth howled in rage and pain, trying to rake her with his claws desperately. Her clothing shredded, but the pale ivory skin of her borrowed body remained unfazed. "That tickles." She hissed, wrenching his arm with such force that his shoulder popped out of its socket.

Carol paused for a moment, and then spun the ragged mutant man around a few times in the air before hurling him like a bowling ball through the columns she had already damaged. The creaking and groaning of the building was immediate, and she shot upward and out through the roof at lighting speed as the west wing came tumbling down onto her victim.

Carol then casually floated down to Sabertooth's last known landing place and began throwing aside hunks of rubble, looking to finish the fight now that the pair had crumbled two of the buildings to bits. She made a mental note to find her body when she was done with the flea bag. "Aha!" She cried out, uncovering one foot. "You sure are big, aren't you?" She said as she yanked him from under the pile by his leg. Sabertooth groaned, but was recovering quickly. Carol didn't intend to let that happen.

She shot upward again, and then dropped him from high above the ground. The man tumbled down, fully healing before he finished falling. He howled at the last minute, seeing his destined landing point. Then, he hit. Carol flew down to look at him. The beast lay broken, his bones all fractured. Pieces of sharp twisted metal had impaled him through the torso in 4 places. Blood was everywhere, splashed out in a crimson arc from the force of his impact, and it bubbled through his lips as he gasped for breath.

As he struggled to free himself, Carol touched down next to him, watching with more than a little fascination as his body tried to knit itself together again. "Well, it looks like there's only one thing I can really do to end this. I can give you a taste of your own medicine." Carol spat, then she removed the gloves from her foreign feeling hands. She kicked him one more time, rebreaking the bones that were healing there, then reached out and put one single finger on Sabertooth's neck, over his pulse.

His eyes began to dim, and thick black lines skated under his skin. Wounds re-opened, flesh tearing apart and blood spewing forth slowly. "This is what you get when you mess with something more powerful than yourself." Carol gently chided as the man dropped into unconsciousness. She let go when his pulse ceased, and stepped back to see the shattered body left behind.

Carol then turned her back on the scene with hot tears spilling from her eyes. She wasn't a killer… She really wasn't, but what choice did she have to let someone like that go on? Her own powers weren't enough to stop him. Who else could have stopped him but the poor girl she'd tried to help less than a day ago? Rogue hadn't the will to do this, so Carol had.

The woman then busied herself, trying to shove Sabertooth away deep in the mind she was steering. She sifted through the rubble for some time until she located her own body. She sobbed, seeing herself laying there lifeless. Carefully, she replaced her gloves and laid herself out. She touched her hair, wondering if she would ever be herself again, or if she would be trapped in Rogue forever.

It seemed like there were a lot of people trapped in Rogue. The noise was merciless, and the body which had been weak when she found herself in it was now exhausted from the battle, the deprivation, and the shock of the day. Carol flopped down next to herself, and promptly blacked out.

**Thanks again to everyone keeping tabs on this story. While I may not respond to each one of you individually, you do provide encouragement to update more often! **


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer –I own no things that are in fact owned by Stan Lee, Marvel, or any other thing much cooler and more successful than I am. I do, however, have a great top secret pumpkin pie recipe with extra ingredients guaranteed to shock and delight.**

Chapter 13- Stranger in Paradise

The approach warning alarm rang out loudly from the front of the Blackbird, alerting everyone that the mission was about to begin in earnest. Wolverine rose quickly to silence the alarm and start the jet's landing procedures. The team looked around excitedly, refastening their safety harnesses for the final descent.

Storm rose to join him as another series of alarms went off. "Damn, hard to see much down there." The gruff man groused.

"Perhaps I can clear it some." Storm offered, taking the copilot's seat and focusing on the scene out their windows. Her eyes flashed white as she called forth a gentle wind to clear the sky a bit for their landing. The haze sitting over their target location cleared somewhat, but not enough to tell exactly what awaited them below.

The two senior X-men expertly landed the Blackbird and disengaged the engines with haste. Storm turned on the camouflaging projection system to disguise their craft as the team began unbuckling and exiting through the rear hatch. As they walked down the ramp, they each clicked on their small comlink earpieces and looked around warily.

The haze continued to clear a bit as Storm focused her powers. It became obvious that smoke and dust where causing the poor conditions, and she brought forth strong humidity and light sprinkling rain to push down the particulates. As she worked her magic, the team suddenly came to an abrupt halt.

The facility lay in shambles. Two entire buildings had been reduced to massive rubble piles at some point in the last 3 hours since they had downloaded the satellite images for planning. There were some small fires burning, and the fine powder of crushed concrete coated everything.

Unfortunately, amidst all of the chaos a small group of armed guards had gathered around something. Wolverine gestured silently, sending everyone to hide behind the rubbish littering the site.

"Well" Kitty whispered brightly into her comlink "at least we know that Rogue is definitely at this complex, and we won't have to go to the other one."

"What makes you think that, chatton." Gambit asked in a hushed voice.

"Who else could wreck this place so fast, besides Wolverine, of course? This has her written all over it. I guess the dummies that abducted her never got the memo about Rogue and the associated property damage risks." Kitty laughed.

Gambit, for the most part, couldn't help but be impressed by this statement. Rogue didn't exactly have the kind of always at hand destructive ability he did. If she managed to trash this place in less than a few hours while fully drugged, she would endear herself to him even more.

"I'm gonna do some recon, see what they're all looking at and if I can pick up a scent from Rogue or Sabertooth." Logan said, then snuck off into the hazy brown air. His footsteps were silent, and we all waited with baited breath, watching out for more troops. After a few moments the radio crackled back to life. "It's her. They're standing around her, Sabertooth, and one other person. We'll have to snatch her back. It looks like they're trying to figure out what to do with the bodies."

The collective gasps of breath rushed in over the microphones. Bodies… Had the mission already gone so horribly wrong, or was their missing team mate not included in that term? The chances of Sabertooth being a part of that plural were slim and foreboding climbed into their minds.

"Wolverine?" Kitty squeaked out, audibly trying to steel herself for bad news.

"Nightcrawler, Shadowcat, you two are coming in from the left. You're duty is to sneak in and out with the packages. There are 3 objectives. I think we need them all. Storm, you provide them some natural cover for the extraction. Gambit, provide us a nice big distraction at the remaining structure, then high tail it through this rubble and see if you can retrieve any data on this place. Colossus, you're on call to help me incase of fighting or moving rubble. Watch our backs, too. Starting now." Wolverine growled out.

The radios fell silent as the team fanned out to tackle their jobs. Storm settled herself on top of the blackbird, directing the winds to still, holding the haze in the soldiers' eyes.

Gambit sprinted through the murk to the last remaining large building, his uncanny eyes helping him to see through the brackish air. He quickly placed his hands on the furthest away corner of the structure and quickly started sending his trademark magenta charge into the concrete. He'd blow this corner, and then sneak back around to help the team. Fortunately, the building was without power due to the massive collapses that had occurred, and the security cameras were unseeing & unmoving.

As Gambit worked to blow just the right size hole in the structure, Nightcrawler and Shadowcat positioned themselves just out of sight of the soldiers, ready to break for the fallen mutants the second the guards turned to the more urgent problem being created. Wolverine crouched, ready to jump in and distract whomever they left behind to stand guard.

The explosion that rocked the final building was massive, shooting heat, flames, and even more stifling powder into the air. The soldiers staggered under the impact, shouting and jumpily whirling toward the noise. The group quickly split, with most headed off toward the disturbance. Only 3 men were left to watch over the still forms.

Suddenly, a rock sailed out, hitting one soldier in the head. He immediately fell, unconscious. The other two shouted angrily, charging into the whirling dusts after their unknown attackers. Shadowcat and Nightcrawler seized the opportunity to pop up next to the three still forms. Nightcrawler quickly grabbed an unknown woman and teleported away while Shadowcat stood guard, ready to phase them for protection should the soldiers attack again. Nightcrawler returned, scooping up whom they assumed to be Rogue, quickly coming away.

Upon his return the pair eyed Sabertooth warily. Shadowcat phased him carefully off of the metal rods impaling him, then Nightcrawler teleported him away quickly. The phaser then turned and ran into the rubble, looking for any files or hard drives that might shed light on the operation.

The team hustled back onto the jet with minimal complication. Wolverine & Gambit had easily knocked out the soldiers they had encountered, and Kitty managed to return to the jet with an armload of electronics that hadn't been powderized by whatever happened to the compound they had infiltrated.

As the ramp closed up, Gambit found himself in the rear bay with Storm, looking over their collected cargo. The blond woman was unfamiliar. She was pale and unconscious, though there were no visible injuries on her body. Storm carefully checked for a pulse, and found faded life signs. The weather witch hooked her up to medical monitors quickly, and then set about restraining the unconscious Sabertooth.

The man appeared dead, and did not seem to be healing. No one was prepared to believe that the brute was actually finished, though. They'd seen both he and Logan come back from this sort of state before.

Meanwhile, Remy hovered over Rogue. He fought down nausea and tears as he looked down on her. She was covered in more blood than even Sabertooth, as well as some sort of sticky goo and a thick paste of cement powder. Telling exactly what had befallen her was impossible, but it didn't look good.

He began to gently clean her off with the limited supplies of the jet medical kits as Logan took off for home as quickly as he could. Storm turned to assist him once she had placed the proper monitors on Sabertooth. She turned off the alarms on the life sign monitors for the man, trying not to place too much faith in the flat lines scrolling across their screens.

The Blackbird returned to the Xavier mansion in what had to be record time. Shadowcat phased herself and her treasures out of the shiny hull before the landing sequence was even complete, eager to start trying to figure out what the heck had been going on at that strange place. She ran off with her armloads of booty, intent on finishing the Intel portion of the mission as soon as possible.

Hank awaited them at the hanger, scurrying over as soon as the ramp lowered. The remaining team members easily wheeled down the three gurneys. He quickly looked over his new patients.

"It looks like we've got a stranger or two in our paradise." The bespectacled Beast commented. He instructed Colossus to take Sabertooth to a secure medical room for dangerous patients, and then hurriedly asked Wolverine to do the same for the blond woman, since they had no idea whether or not she had any mutant powers to be afraid of causing trouble if she awoke.

The blue man forlornly wheeled Rogue into the typical Med bay room himself after they were removed, with Remy opening doors for him along the way. The serpentine young man nervously flitted about the lab as he started his examination, assisting quickly and with minimal commentary until Hank dismissed himself to look in on the other two unconscious people that the mission and dropped into his world.

Though better looking after washing all that gunk off of her, he still had little or no idea exactly what had happened to poor Rogue, and he had two other patients that appeared to need him desperately… The large man sighed deeply. It was shaping up to be a very long night.

**Thanks again to all of you hecklers! It's nice to bask in the anonymous attention of followers, reviewers, and favoritizers without the awkward introductions in person, where I talk about monkeys for no reason… **


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer –I am not a professional writer or comic book artist, though I can dream…. I apologize for my lack of X-men ownership, Marvel-ness, and any other short comings I have yet to realize.**

Chapter 14- Thick Skinned

Hank had indeed spent a long and difficult night in the bowels of the mansion tending to his trio of triage patients. As none of them seemed to be conscious, it was eerily quiet in his domain, and he found himself playing soft classical music to distract himself from the astonishing lack of chatter. He had turned on the music and dimmed the lights to create a more soothing atmosphere for working.

Oh, there were people around. Plenty of them were sitting & stewing just outside his door. Sadly, however, he'd had to kick them all out into the hall so that he could move around and do his work. They weren't very helpful and their conversational skills had been lacking, anyway. Not everyone was up for taking their minds of the horrors of stitching up team mates by talking about classical literature or political machinations around the globe. Also, it got tiresome repeating medical terminologies several times for those without a firm grasp on Latin…

Sabertooth had appeared to be dead when the team brought him in, and all the monitors & tests he could think of had confirmed that suspicion quickly. He had then had the hulking man secured to a gurney and placed in a secured cell with enough monitors & security to keep him in check, should he spontaneously revive. So far things had been quiet, minus a few blips on the machine screens, but he kept checking them just in case...

The blond woman, he found to be a much more challenging case at present. She had barely any pulse, less respiratory function, and diminished brainwaves. The only logical conclusion was that Rogue had absorbed her for a longer duration than he had seen anyone suffer from to date. Her body was intact, with no broken bones, bruises, or even scratches. This proved puzzling when he noted that the state of her clothing suggested that she had fought Sabertooth and likely had been in one of the buildings when it collapsed. He had great difficulty puncturing her skin to insert an IV, which intrigued him. Was resilient skin her power?

He had found Rogue to be in much worse physical condition. He had run her blood work immediately when she arrived, and was shocked to see that the toxin, which they expected to be at debilitating levels still, was completely whipped from her system. This made the blue brainiac fear that the resident sponge had absorbed two mutants in one day…. This theory was to account for the fact that x-rays & bruising indicated that she had suffered massive amounts of trauma in the last few days, but had mended any major structural and internal damage to at least 75%.

His biggest concern at the moment for her was revolving around the severe depletion of fluids and nutrients she had suffered in captivity. Sadly, he would have to let the professor worry about the psychological damages that would undoubtedly have resulted from her abduction and the absorption of two new mutants. Just how severe a problem this would be was unknown – Rogue played her cards close to the vest and not even Xavier seemed to understand exactly what absorption did to Rogue.

He hummed to himself while he checked her IV's and read-outs casually, unable to do much else until someone decided to wake up. Suddenly, a pair of glowing red eyes appeared in front of him, startling the man.

"Oh my stars & garters!" He exclaimed. "Can't you make a little more noise to warn someone of your approach?"

"That's the opposite of what people have been asking of me for most of my life, mon amie." Remy drawled in his gritty tenor. He paused for a second, before giving in and pressing "How's ma belle Rogue?" he asked, his eyes shifting rapidly over the still woman on the bed, taking in the vast array of wires and tubes cluttering her form with sadness.

"That, my friend, is the question of the hour. Perhaps we should call the rest of the troop out there in so I only have to go through this once." Beast said, grinning ever so slightly. "Actually, I'll come out there. We don't want to disturb the patients." At that, Remy silently swept out the door, holding it open for the furry doctor to join the party in the makeshift waiting area.

"She is stable, though she clearly suffered a lot of physical damage and was obviously starved and denied adequate liquids in her captivity. Her brain activity levels & heart rate are ranging wildly from incredibly low to off the charts, though, which worries me greatly." He said quickly, glancing at the other faces hovering in the waiting room. Logan dropped into a chair forcefully at the news, somewhat relieved.

"I believe that Rogue somehow absorbed Sabertooth at one point during the last few days, partially healing a substantial amount of damage that she had sustained and effectively eliminating the poisonous compounds from her bloodstream. The effects of this absorption seem to have worn off, however, and she still has some physical injuries that require attention. I also believe that the blond woman was absorbed very recently, and have noted some physical mutation properties from her occurring currently with Rogue.

"Please elaborate on that bit Henry." Xavier asked gently. It was clear that the professor was very concerned about the theorized double absorptions Rogue had been forced to endure.

"The woman was nearly impossible to get an IV hooked to, her skin was impenetrable somehow. Rogue's was equally difficult to deal with."

"That makes a lot of sense, how she managed to survive against Sabertooth in a fight that was obviously intense." Wolverine commented.

"Well, the other woman is in a coma, and Sabertooth appears to still be dead." Hank spit out, running his large hands through his hair tiredly. "Unfortunately, all we can do for now is wait. I suggest you all get some food and rest." Slowly, the team shuffled out of the door and into the hallway leading to the elevator. Professor Xavier lingered a moment longer, looking at his blue friend solemnly.

"Please, leave me for awhile Hank. You need your rest, and I would like to do a brief mental sweep of our patients, to see if I can be of any assistance to them yet or get any answers on what exactly has happened."

"I'm afraid I've never seen anyone Rogue touched in this bad a state before, not even Logan after the nightmare incident was like this… I am not sure if this mystery woman will be able to recover." Hank said, looking forlorn. "I'll leave you to your work for now, Professor. Let me know when you are ready to leave. I'll be staying down here tonight in case one of them needs me."

Remy found himself in the kitchen with Logan, Kitty, Kurt, Hank, & Storm. Hank & Storm did not linger too long, popping in only to get a snack and some tea. Everyone ended up drinking tea – something about warm liquid being soothing.

"I'm so glad she's alive!" Kitty burst out, nearly teary eyed. "I've been going out of my mind with worry while I try to put together the pieces of all that data I took out of the wreckage."

"How do you think that amount of destruction happened, anyway?" Kurt asked, thoughtfully. I know that Rogue and Sabertooth can fight, but they don't have any exploding, smashing, or laser powers, if you know what I mean."

"I wanna know why this company would sick Creed on Gumbo & Stripes. There's something big going on here… And I don't think it's over yet."

"I can't believe Sabertooth is dead!" Kitty spit out.

"I don't believe it." Logan growled out.

"Do you think Rogue will be okay?" Remy asked, suddenly turning the mood serious. "The look in Hank & Professor's eyes, Remy didn't like it."

"Yeah, with two absorptions & two likely deaths. Stripes' head is probably a mess. Kid's got thick skin, though. She'll come back to us even if she's got to hitch hike out of hell first." Logan said with solemn confidence. He stood up from the table then, headed off to patrol the grounds again before trying to sleep.

Remy silently slipped back down to the lower levels for a few moments, watching the professor with his head bowed over Rogue's straining in concentration with his eyes closed. From his expression, it appeared that whatever was going on with her was not good.

The Cajun cursed his inability to help her again as he made his way slowly back to his bed. He flung his shirt into the hamper with a practiced ease and unnecessary level of force, clearly upset. He had honestly thought that Rogue was dead today when they found her. She had certainly looked it, and to know otherwise was relieving to say the least. It was somewhat unsettling to imagine that the only reason she was still alive is that she'd siphoned off some of Sabertooth's healing factor to undo whatever unspeakable damage he had undoubtedly wrought on her.

As he tossed and turned, he decided that tomorrow he would convince Kitty to set up some workstations for them near the medical wing. He wanted to be close at hand should any new developments occur, and he also desperately wanted answers. Whatever it takes to end this crusade to use us, he thought, is what I'll do. Something like this can't happen again…

**Thanks again to you dear fellow fan fiction lovers! Sorry this took so long…. I'm having a plot shortage coupled with a fear for just how long this thing can get... Also, this was straight from brain to posting, so I apologize if I didn't spit shine up the language like I usually try to.**


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer – I am pretty cool. Okay, I'm actually only moderately okay and not cool at all. I don't own Marvel. I don't own these sweet characters. I am not just a bill sitting on capital hill. This is one of my longest chapters yet! **

Chapter 15- Don't You Make My Green Eyes Blue

True to his convictions of the night before, Remy had indeed gotten Kitty to set up a series of computers for them to work on only moments away from the Medbay. If he listened hard enough he could even hear Beast rattling around in there. It sounded like he was singing something in Latin. Remy would wager he actually had a decent singing voice from the faint sounds he could pick up.

The two of them had a series of laptops hooked up, a wireless printer, and wifi service was cranking. The oddball team of two were scrubbing through data at a rapid pace. Next to them, a coffee pot furiously bubbled away, as it had been since hours earlier. Kitty's eyes were huge and glassy, and Remy had to wonder if the young woman was dazzled by the caffeine, or too interested in her work.

They had had a few surprise visitors this morning already, including Wolverine, Hank, the wimpy ice kid, and the Professor. Perhaps their progress was more interesting to the rest of the team than they had previously imagined, or people just liked having an extra excuse to come peak in on the bevy of unconscious people in their care.

Remy did his best to rip his thoughts away from the turmoil laying just moments away. The task of looking for exactly why these people wanted he and Rogue was a pretty good distraction, and teasing Shadowcat was coming in a close second on the 'try to pretend you're not worried' distraction plan. The third contender for go-to mental numbing was the Danger Room.

Which, by his watch was due a visit from him and Monsieur Claws. "Excuse me Kitty; I've got an appointment with Logan in the Danger Room." He said, suddenly rising from his chair. "You should take a break for a bit… See some friends or something. The decryption can run without us for awhile."

"Yeah, I guess." Kitty murmured. Her eyes remained glued to the screen, darting frantically back and forth. He paused, considering pushing her to leave a bit more, but instead turned and walked off to the locker rooms. Who was he to rob her of her peace? After all, he was heading off to blow things up & find his own for a few moments.

Gambit found himself changed and waiting with Logan outside the Danger Room moments later, eager to get started. The two men were sporting tight, somewhat silly looking outfits and hard expressions. Gambit checked his card supply quickly as the door opened at Wolverine's command. They swept into the room, each determined to get a good workout in and forget about the outside world for awhile.

"You ready Gumbo?" Wolverine growled, cracking his knuckles eagerly.

"What are we playing at today?" Gambit asked.

"We're going to see who's the stealthiest at taking out a military base."

"Like old times for us, then. I already know how this is going to end. Don't forget my name this time old man." Gambit joked with the feral mutant.

Wolverine snorted in response, and called out the activation code. The room dissolved around them, coming to life slowly. They turned to each other, nodded once, smiled wolfishly, and abruptly ran in opposite directions.

The pair sprang into action, each prepared to take out this base in his own way. Attracting too much attention would immediately shut the program down & declare the other man the winner. Gambit intended to win. His plan formed on the fly, something he rarely did as a professional thief. After locating a dead spot in the video camera coverage, he easily snuck through the fences and into the compound by melting the chain link wires just enough to slip through the fence.

Moments later, he had excited the molecules of some padlocks & chains into oblivion and wormed his way into a back service entrance. He quickly ducked inside, just as the first guard patrol turned his way. He didn't breathe a sigh of relief, though. The fun was just beginning. Gambit nimbly darted his way into the shadows and set out to find either a munitions storage area, security, or a control room. Any three were easy ins for him. Heck, he'd settle for a data port with his highly advanced mobile and a few minutes to worm his way into the servers. Mentally he added 'server room' to his list of places that would be fortuitous to find.

Meanwhile, Wolverine had, as expected cut himself a neat little entry into the base with his claws. First he'd hauled his heavy skeleton up a service ladder onto the roof, then he'd surgically sliced down one side of a louvered mechanical vent, loosening the metal grill enough to bend it slightly and squeeze in.

The great thing about oversized military bases was that they had equally big mechanical enclosures with louvers big enough to cut open and walk in without even having to bend down or get too dirty to do so. Next, he found the roof access hatch and easily sliced through the latching mechanism. He used a nearby piece of scrap pipe to pry open the lid, propped it open using the same pipe, and hurried down the ladder into a janitor's closet.

He looked around, quickly noting his good fortune. He reached over and threw on a pair of dirty maintenance coveralls over his uniform. It was unfortunate that he didn't look much like a 'Sven", but it would work well enough. He grabbed a bad of tools off the floor and headed out the door, keeping quiet and low key. This was going to be a piece of cake, unless someone who knew Sven showed up...

Gambit slid around another corner, ducking from site as three men in uniform hurried past him. They were talking excitedly about a malfunction with the cameras in the southwest sector. That, of course, had been him. He'd taken the liberty of blowing a few of them off of their mounting posts with charged jellybeans he'd borrowed from one of the workers' desks.

The distraction was just what he needed to free up the pathway to the server room. He had to admit, he loved the anal regulated agencies sometimes. There had been an employee orientation manual just lying in the Human Resources office unattended. The fantastic way-finding map on the last page was priceless, and he'd memorized it in mere seconds thanks to years of careful training.

He heard fast approaching footsteps. Gambit rolled behind another desk as a new set of men took off in the direction of his security prank angrily talking into their handheld radios. Another close one, but he was almost to the door for the server room. He waited until the danger had passed, then quickly darted over to the security keypad. He smiled at his good fortune and took out a small light, carefully shielding the pad from the overhead fluorescent fixtures. The light highlighted the greasy wear patterns of repetitive use on 4 distinct keys, so he quickly typed in the 4 digit combination into a small device and snapped it onto the keypad. It made gentle clicking noises for a moment, then the LED display flashed the numbers in the correct code order.

Gambit easily removed the device, typed in the code, and found himself in a cold room filled with machines. He hated server rooms – always too much AC blasting for his taste, and a weird feeling of electricity in the air. A quick glance around revealed a single camera & a workstation set up at the far end. He ducked under the camera's line of sight as he hurried over to the desk and sat down.

Wolverine had run into some fictional people he couldn't avoid, and was silently cursing under his breath. The morons in the simulation were trying to get him to fix a few busted security cameras. Apparently his disguise was working a little too well. He had complained about how he didn't know anything about electronics, and tried to leave, but one of the holograms kept talking on and on while blocking his exit.

This was clearly the work of that damn Cajun, and he had a sinking feeling he was going to lose the simulation soon, if he'd already been this far inside. In desperation, Wolverine snapped at the man "I'll go get someone who does know how to fix this shit!" and stormed past, knocking the tall hologram person out of his way.

The figures all turned and stared at him in shock, but he just pushed onward, heading in the opposite direction. He had yet to find anything that could give him a lead on the security rooms, but he could smell the munitions now.

He grinned a feral grin, hurrying toward his new objective.

"HA!" Gambit mentally crowed. He had gotten into the base's servers and set off a series of events that would ensure the base's shut down and his victory. Right now, a virus was corrupting all of the data files it could find. He'd managed to loop all of the security camera data, so that the monitors were now replaying last week's footage, which was being erased second by second as it played. Then, he'd take the liberty of disabling all outside phone & data line access, and turned on a few programs that would one by one cause the mechanical systems to fail, overheat, and in some cases explode. He'd set off the self destructs of the base in a chain reaction, & disabled the perimeter security. Finally, he'd set up a nifty little new password protection that kept changing the password every second to keep anyone from stopping the chaos he'd created. Then, he'd calmly stood up and sauntered out the door and out the way he'd come in, neatly avoiding any personal injury.

The first explosion went off just as Wolverine hit the ammunitions storage. "Ah shit." The man grumbled, just as the computer piped up.

"Simulation Terminated. Mission Successful Gambit." The Cajun grinned at him happily.

"You just too slow, old man."

"Yeah, well they were trying to get me to repair the damage you caused. Didn't even notice I wasn't really an employee. That's stealth."

"Whatever you say mon ami. Whatever you say." Gambit said, clapping the shorter mutant on the back as they exited the room in better spirits than they'd gone in. "I'm gonna shower, then stop to see Rogue before dinner."

"I'll join you." Wolverine said, still stewing over his loss.

A short time later Logan rambled into the Medical Bay to find Hank looking very agitated. He appeared to be staring up at the ceiling with apprehension. Remy came through the doors quickly, almost running into the two with his zeal. His eyes immediately followed Hank's and Logan's.

Rogue was awake! Rogue was awake and floating near the ceiling, acting like a cornered alley cat.

"Cherie! Come down from there please?" He asked, perplexed as to what the hell was going on.

"It's Carol, not Sherry. And I'm not coming down till the blue guy puts whatever drugs he's trying to pump into me away and puts me back into my body over there." The woman spit out, sounding strange to all three men

"Rogue, Hank won't hurt you. He probably just wanted to give you another saline drip, right? You were really malnourished during your capture." Logan said slowly.

"Capture. Oh…." The woman said, slowly floating downward. "You mean I'm on the receiving end now. At least I'm not totally dead. I thought my body was gone for good, but it seems to have a heartbeat over there." The woman apparently named Carol muttered to herself.

She looked up suddenly, realizing they were all still looking at her oddly.

"What?" She demanded.

"May Rogue have control of her body back from you? We're doing everything we can to try and set you to rights in your own." Hank asked politely. Her blue eyes blinked widely at him.

"Sure. Do you know how I do that?"

"Sadly no." Beast told her, shaking his head as he wrung his furry blue hands. "But the Professor should be able to help." He said, nodding to Logan, who immediately picked up the phone near Hank's workstation and dialed Xavier's extension.

Remy stared, speechless. He couldn't get over the fact that Rogue had blue eyes and a Yankee accent….

**Thanks again to the hungry readers out there! Cross your fingers for a fast update….**


	16. Chapter 16

**Disclaimer –My salamander made me do it. Okay, I'm actually not under duress by a small tiger striped squishy creature. I don't own Marvel. I don't own these sweet characters and make no money from staring at my computer screen typing this up. **

Chapter 16- Rogue Gone Wild

The blue eyed woman slowly descended from the ceiling. She touched down soundlessly and walked over to her body. She looked it over carefully. "How did I get so banged up? I'm invulnerable." She asked the room in general. Hank was deep in mental conversation with the professor, leaving Logan and Remy to deal with the problem.

"Let's start small. I'm Logan. This is Remy. We're Rogue's family of sorts."

"Carol. Carol Danvers. I'll give you the number to my family, so they know I survived. Well, sort of survived. I'm sure they think I died in the facility collapse. The whole invulnerability thing is not general knowledge."

"So what exactly happened? We're in the dark about how you ended up in Rogue's head." Remy asked, his low voice slow and soothing. Logan had a hunch the Cajun was using some of his secondary mutation to ensure they got the information without a fuss.

"Lets' start where I came into the story. I found out about Rogue when Sabertooth was holding her captive down in the lab basement. I accidently stumbled upon them. He was supposed to hand her over to the resource team, which would have treated her humanely, but he wouldn't do it for some 'plan' or other he had going on. I think it was to capture you." She said, pointing to Remy.

At this, the two men exchanged worried glances.

"Anyway, I snuck in when he left for awhile to try and give her some food and water, as the creep hadn't bothered at all and she was obviously in bad shape. I'm not scared of the cretin, so I didn't back down when he came back early and caught me. We started fighting, and I was creaming him until I accidentally got knocked into Rogue." She paused, sitting Rogue's weak body down on her previous bed. The story clearly was coming back to her slowly. Logan and Remy waited, afraid to interrupt.

"I woke up some time later in her body, convinced that my body was completely dead. It sure didn't seem alive, and I was in her body, so I decided to repay the favor to Sabertooth. Somehow I still have my powers now… I have no idea how any of that worked."

"Rogue's mutation allows her to borrow other people's powers, abilities, memories, and such for a time based on the length of contact shared." Professor Xavier voiced as he wheeled in. "In your case, the contact was very long. We have no other such incident on record to wager how long your powers will remain with her, though a piece of your mind will always remain."

Stunned silence reigned for a few moments, while she processed this information.

"That's a uniquely dangerous power." Carol said suspiciously. "So how did my body get so badly hurt?" She asked, clearly unhappy with this news.

"When she touches you, you temporarily lose what she gains power-wise. More specifically, it weakens you physically and dampens your powers for awhile. When she touches me, my healing slows down to almost a normal person's level. It picks back up again after awhile." Logan piped in.

"What exactly are your mutant abilities?" Remy asked

"Flight, super strength, and invulnerability." She said proudly. I'm the one that brought down those buildings. I'd have kept going if her body hadn't been so weak by the time I ended up in it. She just didn't have any energy to fight more." She took a deep breath, then asked "So how are we getting me back into my body?"

"Let's see what the situation is." Xavier said, wheeling over to Carol's body. He bowed his head over the sleeping form and went to work in the psychic plain. The room stared on in silence.

After about thirty minutes Professor Xavier surfaces from his mind scanning, appearing exhausted. He rolls back a few feet from the bed Carol's body lay on, and steeps his hands together in front of his chin, resting his index fingers softly on his lips.

"This is most troubling Carol. I have found your psyche in your body, but it seems to be highly damaged by the length of contact you accidently had with Rogue. I believe, however, that with some assistance I have a way to repair your mind."

"Okay, what do we do? I want my own brain back. Have you ever listened in to Rogue's head? It's a mess. There is always someone talking or fighting."

"Indeed, Rogue's mind is quite difficult to navigate and without any of the control she possesses, it must be quite painful to deal with the psyches. I will need some special equipment so that I may better penetrate Rogue's mind for this procedure. What I plan to do is copy the copy of your mind residing in Rogue and then 'paste' it, if you will, back into your body. This should be able to overwrite the damaged parts and leave what is intact in place in your mind. It is, highly experimental, of course. We have never had to do something so drastic before."

"Anything is worth a shot." Carol says.

"Chuck, will that help Rogue get control back?" Wolverine asked.

"I am not sure Logan. I believe that Rogue has not taken back control yet due to the introduction of two strong psyches at the same time, coupled with her physical and emotional stress. Her psyches seems to be in a state of chaos and her own conscious self is in a state of deep hibernation that I cannot risk pulling her out of yet until she has further healed.

"You are saying that once this Carol transfer goes down, we might not have Rogue back yet?" Gambit asked.

"Essentially yes. But, I do believe for a brief period of time we will have Carol occupying two minds until the copy in Rogue's head fades. Hopefully she will be able to assist us in healing Rogue's body.

"Sure, whatever I can do. When do we try the transfer?"

"I will work on gathering the equipment now. Hank, come up for tea later and we will plan out the procedure."

"With surety I can promise that I will be there. This is an exciting chance to test the bonds of science once again!." Hank said, looking a little too gleeful. His sharp white teeth gleamed with the prospect of another experiment. With that, the Professor directed his wheelchair out of the medical lab and headed toward the elevator. Gambit and Logan exchanged quick looks, then nodded and headed upstairs to get some food, leaving Hank and Carol to their own devices for awhile.

Meanwhile the until now still form of Sabertooth sat unattended in the secure room of the Medical wing. The body had been kept cold, for fear of decomposition. He was covered with a thin white sheet, but you could see wires coming from beneath it from the attached medical sensors. Hank had wanted to keep an eye on him to make sure he was, in fact, actually dead.

What they didn't know, however, was that a few cells of Sabertooth's were still alive. The big man was slowly and surely knitting himself back together again, slowly, surely, and undetected.

**Thanks reviewers & followers! I appreciate the point out – I repeat Cyclops is dead. His ghost wasn't at any meeting. I know, I know. Update faster, blah blah blah. No promises!**


End file.
